


migraines, tea time, and everything in between

by endofsummer



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: (drugs are used purely for medicinal purposes), (sorry), Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Curses, Food, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Quidditch, Worldbuilding, bc why not, but i did edit it down to the best i could, but not really, drug mention, healer seonghwa, herbologist hongjoong, i think, idk what else to tag but i'll think of something later probably, its set in south korea, just because, lapslock, magizoologist mingi, my twitter @ influenced this just a little lmao, okay so i have some more tags to add and then we're done, potion maker san, probably, quidditch player jongho, quidditch player kyungmoon, quidditch player wooyoung, quidditch player yunho, somehow maddox got involved in this i'm so sorry king, the tenses change a lot for no reason, thought i should let yall know!, veela hongjoong, wandmaker yeosang, yunho and mingi are Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22107670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofsummer/pseuds/endofsummer
Summary: yunho has severe migraines, a terrible thing to have when you're a quidditch player. his roommate, mingi, enlists the help of his friends seonghwa and hongjoong, and yunho tries his best to survive both being a just a little bit of a disaster and the mildly sinister origins of his terrible headaches.aka: the hp au that literally no one asked for. like, at all.
Relationships: Choi San/Song Mingi, Jeong Yunho & Song Mingi, Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong, Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 19
Kudos: 134





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i had a lot of fun researching (kinda) for this, so i hope you like it! this does not take place at a school of any sort (sorry?) but i hope you enjoy nonetheless. thanks for reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yunho enlists the help of seonghwa, a healer, and hongjoong, a herbologist. dramatics and shenanigans ensue.

yunho draped himself over the couch, groaning as he applied the bag of frozen carrots against his head. he couldn’t imagine going to quidditch practice with a rager this bad, and honestly, he wouldn’t even try. he could send a quick letter to his captain, but he doubted he would even be able to focus enough to write out the words ‘hey by the way my bitch of a migraine problem is up and at it again. will be taking a rain check xoxo’ or some variation of that. but perhaps… he could get his roommate to do it.  
“mingi-yah!” he called and then winced. when there was no answer, he tried to raise his voice enough to where he could be heard but also low enough to not bust his own eardrums. “mingi-yah! my dear, my love, my savior!”  
there was silence first, and then the telltale crashing about from the inside of the man’s room. finally, after a few moments, he emerged, blinking rapidly. “you called?” he breathed out, chest heaving slightly.  
yunho whined. “yes! my head hurts so bad oh my g- wait are you okay?” the couch-ridden boy stopped wallowing for a moment to truly look at his roommate.  
he looked disheveled, but no more than usual. much like he had just landed a date with a member from his favorite music group and was still processing the fact.  
mingi nodded, enthusiastic. “just made a huge breakthrough on some of my research! i mean its small progress but like, it’s progress nonetheless for the first time in fucking weeks. i’m gonna have to call this herbologist i know for some samples, and stuff but it’s nice to get some fucking progress for once.” he breathed out, grinning from ear to ear.  
finally, some good news. mingi had been working on a research paper about the origins of magical creatures and magical herbs and their relation to wizards, or at least that was the gist that yunho got from it. it was rough on mingi mostly for the fact that magical origins were surprisingly very hard to find or have clear examples of. most things were that of legend, a bit too magical even for the taste of wizards and witches. yunho would’ve given up months ago, but magizoology was mingi’s passion, and to really get respect in that community he needed a good research piece that was at least thirty feet of parchment.  
“oh, congrats dud- aghgh,” yunho winced for at least the 47th time that day.  
“oh, man, are the migraines getting you again?” mingi’s lips downturned. “do you want me to send a quick little letter to your coach? you definitely can’t practice in this condition.”  
yunho groaned in appreciation. “oh my god, yes please, you absolute angel.”  
mingi sighed as he made his way back into his room and swiftly came out with a quill, some ink, and a bit of parchment in hand and sat down next to their coffee table. “you know,” he started off a bit too loud for yunho's liking, and adjusted to avoid the glare currently being sent his way. “you’ve gotta figure out this migraine thing. it’s been going on for too long now.”  
“ugh, don’t remind me.” he turned the bag of carrots to a new side. “i’m so fucking lucky that quidditch season isn’t for another half of the year. jongho’s gonna be so pissed that he has to fill in my place again.”  
“you’ll probably owe him a few meals or something, i’m sure he’ll understand,” mingi reassured him airily. “do you even know what’s causing it? have you seen a healer about it? i know a healer, actually, i’m sure he’d look at you for free.” mingi offered, signing off the letter with a bit of flourish that was very mingi of him.  
the quidditch player looked at him with imploring eyes. “would you? would you please be an absolute dear? more so than you are now, you beautiful saint?”  
mingi cackled as he went to their owl’s cage to attach the letter. “of course, hyung. he’s roommates with that herbologist i mentioned earlier. we can probably go together when i visit him for the samples and stuff.” he paused before opening it, considering a thought, probably, and then going to sit back down next to the coffee table.  
“what are you doing?” yunho asked, curious as he watched mingi tear off the end bit of his letter and then begin writing on it.  
“writing a letter to hongjoong-hyung,” he paused for a beat. “the herbologist,” he clarified.  
“oh, cool,” yunho murmured in discomfort as another wave of pain washed over him. this migraine shit was really starting to piss him off.  
mingi hummed sympathetically. “you want me to bring you a bag of frozen peas after i send kyu off?” he pointed towards their still napping ural owl, who had yet to wake up, despite it being almost 2 pm in the afternoon.  
“god, mingi, you’re such a fucking babe.”  
mingi snickered. “you know it, hyung.”  
+++  
mingi took him to the herbologist the next morning, waking him up at the crack of dawn (“it’s only 8 am” mingi raised his eyebrows in judgment when he commented as such). yunho dressed to impress, because he technically was a public figure, as a quidditch player for one of south korea's three official national teams. and no one would catch him slipping, not even if it was his off day.  
well, that and the fact that mingi had off-handedly commented that the healer they were going to see was really hot, and he couldn’t show up to a hot man’s apartment with sweats and a mild case of bed hair. he just couldn’t. mingi had laughed when he’d seen him quickly go back into his room to change, but it was imperative that he make a good impression. that and maybe he didn’t want his first impression to be less than satisfactory for both him and everyone else involved.  
finally, after going through about 4 outfits, he exited his room in a simple jeans and hoodie and thick bomber jacket combo. “alright, i’m ready!” he said brightly as he held out his hand for mingi to hold so they could apparate together. it may be morning, but the prospect of seeing someone hot could truly be a great motivator.  
mingi rolled his eyes as he pulled his wand out. “let’s go, then.”  
a few seconds later they found themselves in one of the few magical beings only apartment complexes in korea, and by the looks of it, the healer and his herbologist roommate must have been in their bag. the complex was extremely tall, and took up a large amount of space that yunho was astonished didn’t garner at least a little interest from the muggles walking around. the magic in this area was clearly very effective, considering that this complex was giving the lotte world tower a run for its money, at least, in terms of size.  
mingi led yunho into the lobby, where they were greeted by a doorman who recognized the former, probably from all the times he’s come here for samples from the hongjoong guy, and whatever else he does when he visits the two. mingi greets the doorman back, who is busy ogling at yunho in shocked recognition. yunho smiles at him, and the doorman blinks back as the pair then walks over to the fireplace that was clearly connected by the floo network, based on the large pot of floo powder near it.  
“just say room 801b, and it’ll take you there,” mingi says as he grabs a small handful of the power. “see you there!” he says, and then disappears into the fire after saying the room number.  
yunho quickly follows suit, and lands on the soft welcome mat that has been graciously placed next to the fireplace. “mingi-yah!” he hears an affectionate cry from a moderately deep voice as he’s brushing stray soot and ash off his shoes.  
“seonghwa-hyung!” mingi embraces the man, and yunho finally looks up to see what must be the healer who’s supposed to look at him, and he promptly gasps because ‘oh wow, he really is hot’.  
he’s about to say something and then he sees movement in the corner of his eye and then promptly loses his goddamn mind.  
a much shorter man comes out of what must be his room and yunho thinks ‘this must be hongjoong’ and then is slammed by the realization that hongjoong is the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life, and that’s not something he says lightly, knowing several magical elites from his time as a quidditch player. mingi had been going on about seonghwa, as he should, but hongjoong was something else entirely. the man has the features you might find on a fae, with pretty lips that seem to naturally curl on their own, and silver hair that seems very fine and soft (which yunho may or may not suddenly desire to run his hands through). hongjoong seems to have a natural pull that could pull anyone that lays eyes on him in his orbit, and yunho finds himself being dragged into it against his will.  
before yunho can think of any more mind-numbingly sappy things to say about hongjoong’s appearance alone, a gasp brings him out of his reverie. he looks over to the source, which seems to be seonghwa, who is staring at yunho and has his mouth slack.  
“what is jeong yunho-ssi from the siberian soulsuckers doing in my apartment, mingi-yah?” seonghwa asks faintly, glancing over at mingi, who is sporting a shit-eating grin on his face.  
“surprise?” the younger says, waving some jazz hands for effect. yunho snorts, and then immediately dies inside because ‘oh my god, hongjoong must have heard that ungodly noise’.  
the man in question is also staring at yunho, but in a way that he can’t decipher, so he decides not to dwell on it. instead, he bows deeply, because he’s respectful and definitely not because he wants to impress by seeming polite and well-mannered. “thanks for having me here,” he gives what he’d like to call his winning smile first to seonghwa, then hongjoong. seonghwa wheezes, hitting mingi’s chest frantically with his fist. “mingi-yah?!”  
mingi cackles as he goes over to pull to yunho into a side hug. “yunho-hyung is both my roommate and an old friend from my academy days. he’s the one with the bad migraines i told you about yesterday. hope you treat him well,” mingi tries not to giggle, breathing hot breath down yunho's neck. as if he wasn’t warm enough with hongjoong’s still quiet gaze on him.  
seonghwa raises his eyebrows. “oh really?” he said, his voice faint. “i’ll go make some tea for him, then,” he says as he feebly makes his way into what yunho can only assume is the kitchen. “i’ll be right back,” he calls, his voice quiet and wavering.  
mingi burst into laughter as he went over to take a seat on their hosts’ couch. “god, that was so worth bringing you here.”  
yunho narrowed his eyes at his friend. “i knew you were being too nice yesterday for a reason,” he joked.  
“so you’re the roommate that mingi constantly talks about, huh?” hongjoong finally breaks his silence, his voice quiet and his face breaking out into a polite smile. 'oh fuck, his voice is nice too.'  
yunho cursed mingi in his head. “all good things, i hope,” he laughed awkwardly.  
hongjoong chuckles and the sight blinds yunho for a good second. “of course, jeong yunho-ssi. my name is kim hongjoong.” he trails off, hesitant. “i just didn’t expect you to be… you, i guess.” he scratches the back of his head, a bit embarrassed. “seonghwa-hyung’’s a huge fan of your team, actually, so this is kind of a huge thing for him… haha,” he ends awkwardly. he then zeroes in on mingi, going over to pinch his ear. “i can’t believe you kept this from your hyung for so long, you horrible demon child.”  
mingi yelps and tries to move away from him and yunho laughs because it’s what he deserves.  
hongjoong turns his attention back to yunho, his expression now a bit more reserved, but welcoming all the same. “mingi said you were here for, um, migraines?” he asked, trying to make some polite conversation probably.  
“yeah,” yunho made his way to sit over next to mingi, putting himself all the way up in his space and clearly annoying him. “they make playing kind of hard, and it would kind of suck if i fell off my broom in the middle of practice because of a particularly bad migraine, so…” he shrugged.  
hongjoong hummed. “i see,” he nodded and then clapped his hands together. “i’ll go and check on my mess of a roommate,” he jokes, before immediately dropping the smile off his face in what seemed like embarrassment. “uh, make yourself at home, yunho-ssi.” and with that, he scurried off into the kitchen.  
yunho, a bit disheartened by the slightly stand-offish behavior from hongjoong, pouted at mingi, who was undoubtedly having the time of his life next to him. “i can’t believe you didn’t at least warn them,” yunho crossed his arms. “and to think, i called you such sweet names yesterday.”  
before mingi can respond, seonghwa bursts from the kitchen with a tray in his hands and two mugs of what was probably steaming hot tea in it, based on the smell, and a jar of something that yunho couldn’t make out. “so, yunho-ssi,” he starts, setting the tray down on the coffee table and picking up what yunho now saw was a jar of honey. “i made some peppermint-chamomile tea, would you like honey in it?” seonghwa flashes a brilliant smile at him, and yunho is so terribly miffed that mingi had hidden his two extremely hot friends for so long.  
“honey, uh, yes please” yunho stammers, the disaster gay in him jumping out.  
seonghwa heaps a large spoonful into what yunho assumes is his cup. “it’s raw honey, so it should be good for you,” he clarifies as he mixes the natural sweetener in, and then handed it off to yunho, who took it graciously. he’d never been one to refuse beautiful people.  
“thanks,” yunho smiles shyly, momentarily forgetting that mingi was next to him.  
“what about me?” the said man pouted at seonghwa now as the older sipped from the other mug he had brought along with him.  
“you mean nothing to me,” seonghwa sniffed, clearly still a bit upset about the surprise.  
mingi groaned. “aw, come on, hyung, you got to meet one of your favorite athletes, don’t i at least deserve some love?”  
seonghwa pointedly ignore the younger and turned to yunho, now serious. “so, those migraines?”  
“uh, yeah?” yunho questions, a bit more nervous now that he had seonghwa’s unwavering gaze on him.  
“how did they start? how often do they come about? and how painful are they?” seonghwa fires off.  
“um, they started popping up towards the end of the last season, which was about,” yunho tries to think. “about 5 weeks ago? i don’t know if you saw at that time, but when we had that national match against the sejong salamanders i almost fell off my broom.” seonghwa gasped slightly, but nodded, signaling yunho to continue. “that was the third migraine i’d had so far, i think. i’d barely kept it together the rest of the game, and thankfully we were ahead and kyungmoon-ah caught the snitch only a few minutes later.”  
yunho sighed. “but it worried me a bit… the migraines would go away for a few days and then come back out of nowhere. it was so strange,” he furrowed his brows. “anyways, it affects the way i play… and usually, i would manage, but they’ve been getting worse, so, i’m here.”  
seonghwa is silent for a few moments, thinking. “ah, yunho-ssi… do you think the migraines occur naturally or are magically induced?”  
mingi stiffens beside yunho, and he himself blanks. “sorry, what?”  
“like, you know, if they happen on their own, or maybe someone hexed, or worse, cursed you?” seonghwa clarified this time, cocking his head to the side.  
yunho feels like he’s been punched. “i, uh, i never even considered that to be a possibility.”  
“yunho-ssi... you said that you got the migraines right before your last few matches before the final national match right?”  
yunho feels like an idiot. he knows where this is going, so he swallows. “yup.”  
seonghwa purses his lips. “well, someone might have cursed you or something to, ah, keep you from being able to properly guard the goal.”  
“but why would they curse yunho-hyung?” mingi asks suddenly. “he’s the keeper, not the seeker or anything like that. why would anyone want to target him?”  
yunho huffs. “am i not important enough to get cursed?”  
“no, no, no, sweets, you’re important,” mingi assuages him quickly. “it’s just that, you know, there are more obvious choices.”  
“that’s not true,” seonghwa says a bit defensively. mingi and yunho stare back in mild surprise, and the elder bites his lip in embarrassment. “i mean, the keeper makes sure that the other team doesn’t score right? and there have been cases when the seeker will catch the snitch, but lose because the other team was able to score enough points for that not to matter,” seonghwa explains passionately. “and the last few teams that the siberian soulsuckers went against were at about the same levels of prowess. so they take out the keeper to make sure that he can’t guard as well. and if they’re able to score so easily-”  
“then they can win even without the snitch,” yunho whispered.  
mingi frowned. “i didn’t think winning was that serious.”  
“it is!” both yunho and seonghwa protest. mingi put his hands up, a sign of surrender.  
“okay, okay, i know. still though,” he knits his brows together and looks at yunho, really looks at him. “you could’ve gotten seriously hurt.”  
yunho feels his heart soften. “aw, mingi-” he starts, but then is interrupted.  
“how would you pay the rent if you were jobless and in the hospital,” mingi sighs dolefully, and yunho punches him playfully in the arm.  
“fuck you,” he says, and mingi sticks his tongue out at him.  
“you wish,” he raises his eyebrows suggestively, and yunho just about gags.  
before the can continue their banter, however, hongjoong finally reappears from the kitchen, with two ziploc bags filled with plants in hand, both of them sealed tightly. “here is the specimen you requested,” he smiles as he goes over to hand then off to mingi, who looks so grateful he has stars in his eyes. “they were a bit difficult to prepare, so that’s why i took so long in the kitchen,” he chuckles.  
“oh, thanks hyung, seriously,” he grabs them and places them in his lap, observing them.  
“no problem,” he waves him off. “it’s a nice change of pace from making tea blends and stuff.”  
seonghwa snaps, and hongjoong startles. there’s a bright look in his eye. “oh, right!” he turns to his roommate, who’s apprehensive. “you can make a tea blend for yunho-ssi, while we figure out what’s wrong with him.”  
“huh?” hongjoong furrows his brows.  
seonghwa nods excitedly. “i’ll have to do a physical for him, and then check his head to see what’s going on. if it’s a curse-”  
“a curse?” hongjoong interrupts, bringing his hand to his mouth. “that’s horrible.”  
“yes, yes, a curse,” seonghwa quirks his lips in disappointment. “we think he was cursed by someone who didn’t want his team to win the south korean cup. and since it might be a hex or a curse, we’ll have to figure out a counter to it, which might take a bit of time, depending on how skilled the caster was.” seonghwa rubs his temples. “plus, we’ll have to try and identify who cast the spell through the traces of magic still left…” he frowned, but then brightened. “so in the meantime, you should give him some of your tea blends to ease the pain to that of a regular headache or something.”  
hongjoong raised his eyebrows at seonghwa. “that would require jeong-ssi to come here a lot, and i’m sure he has better things to do-”  
“i don’t mind,” yunho interrupted, a little too eagerly, if the look mingi gives him is any indication of that. he’s definitely gonna have to deal with some teasing later. “it involves my health and my career, i really don’t mind,” he stresses.  
the elder nods slowly. “alright, then,” he agrees after some hesitance. “the kind of tea i make is usually charmed to be a bit stronger in effect, so they should be able to help you a little.”  
yunho grins. “thank you hongjoong-ssi,” and hongjoong waves him off, much like he did to mingi earlier, which makes yunho glad. it seems like a movement of familiarity for him, and he wants to be familiar with hongjoong so terribly bad.  
“call me hyung, we’re gonna be hanging out a lot together probably,” he smiles, and yunho grins, despite seeing the knowing look that mingi sends him out of the corner of his eye, and the way seonghwa raises his eyebrows at hongjoong.  
“of course,” yunho smiles. he really hoped they would.  
+++  
“so, hongjoong-huyng, huh?” mingi smirks at yunho as he appears from the fire and into the lobby.  
yunho pulls his wand out casually, and observes it, clearly avoiding eye contact. “i have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”  
the other man rolled his eyes. “yunho, every time you set eyes on him you straight up had heart eyes.”  
“you must have been seeing things mingi, i would never.” yunho sniffs, moving ahead to exit. the doorman is still there, and he looks just as shocked as he did before, as if yunho had been a figment of his imagination. yunho smiles at him again, and he blushes so bright yunho gets a little worried.  
“hmm... well, don’t get yourself hurt in the process, yunho-hyung.” he throws an arm around the keeper, and yunho furrows his brow in confusion.  
yunho pushed the exit open, and it took him a while to process what was said. “huh?”  
“nothing. let’s get going and apparate already, some muggle just looked at me funny,” he glares at the woman who just passed them  
“oh, alright. see you at home, asshole.”  
“you too, you sweet, stupid bitch.”  
+++  
quidditch practice the next week isn’t too terrible. jongho has only had to substitute for yunho three times already. then again it’s only been a day, so yunho can’t be too quick to judge the week. it’s all he can do to block wooyoung and youngmin’s combined attempts to score one on him, and he thinks he’s doing a pretty good job so far. it’s not much, but it’s better than what he managed last week.  
and perhaps his mind might be elsewhere today because he gets to have tea with hongjoong later this afternoon.  
after trying to work out both of their schedules through many letters sent through kyu and hongjoong’s very cute owl eun, they had figured out meeting times this week. yunho learned that hongjoong liked to add little emoticons usually found in muggle texting in his writing as well (yunho only knew this from mingi trying to show him the muggle technology he used to be able to contact his family), and he can’t help but smile at the greetings he finds at the top of every letter, reading “hello (again) yunho-ssi!! :DD”. his letters tend to be extremely wordy, as he has a nice way with words, and it shows in his writing, opposite of yunho's generally short and straight to the point letters. not that the younger minds in the slightest though, it’s fun to make his way through hongjoong’s neat hangul, and the expositions to adds to his letters to explain slight delays in writing/sending the letter or the stray stain(s) on the parchment make yunho laugh. and although the action does sometimes make him wince due to his migraines that come and go, he is still internally cheered up by it and it makes the horrible experience just a little better.  
“stop being a space case, yunho-hyung,” jongho deadpans, awfully close to yunho space near the goal and he immediately reacts, guard up and on the defensive. “woah, chill dude, kyungmoon-hyung is calling an end to practice,” he points downwards to where everyone is flying down to gather on the field under them.  
yunho nods, and makes his way down with jongho, who goes a little slower for yunho. “it’s because you’re old,” he explains when the elder asks about it, and then snickers at the affronted expression on yunho's face. he flies down just a little faster to be out of range of yunho's wand, and the keeper just sighs as he lands next to wooyoung, who looks up and smiles at him, eyes twinkling.  
kim kyungmoon, their seeker and captain, claps to get everyone’s attention before the shorter man can say anything, however. “alright everyone, despite yunho-yah’s terrible blocking today-”  
“hey, it was way better than last week-”  
“practice wasn’t a total bust today. youngmin, good job with passing off the quaffles today, those strategies you developed with wooyoung and joohyuk. shinwon, work out how to bat without straining your arm, and jongho, don’t hog the bludgers, and bring down the strength a little. overall, good job everyone, and let’s keep it up for the rest of the week,” kyungmoon finishes, and then catches sight of yunho's pout. he rolls his eyes. “yunho-yah was not that much of a disaster, i guess.” yunho grins and goes to throw an arm around his captain. “yeah, yeah, alright,” kyungmoon waves him off as they walk towards the lockers together, the others lagging behind them for a bit to mess around.  
after entering the locker room together, kyungmoon speaks up. “you working on that migraine thing?” he had been worried about the keeper since the other had revealed that the ailment might be of magical origin. though kyungmoon took any opportunity to make fun of yunho, he cared for the other as one would for their own brother, as they had been on the same quidditch teams since the beginning of both their quidditch careers. he had also expressed feeling a bit guilty, as cursing the seeker would have been the more obvious choice, and he knew he just as easily could have been in yunho's position.  
yunho hums. “yeah, gonna go and see that herbologist i told you about.” yunho puts his broom in its case and puts it in his locker, to be retrieved after he showered off the sweat and hard work from today.  
“oh, you mean the really pretty one?” kyungmoon says a bit too nonchalantly as he casually gets ready to shower, and yunho, not for the first time and certainly not the last, regrets ever introducing mingi and kyungmoon, as they now seem to be teasing him behind his back.  
“i have absolutely no knowledge of what you’re going on about,” yunho quietly murmurs as he strips out of his playing gear and grabs the towel from outside of his locker.  
kyungmoon grins, and closes his locker, showering gear already in hand and towel securely wrapped around his waist. he’s always been a bit faster than yunho, not that the other minds. just the seeker traits jumping out, the keeper guessed. “i’m glad you were able to figure out something dude, and if there’s a pretty herbologist involved, all the better,” he winks, and yunho blushes.  
“shut up, kyungmoon-hyung,” yunho playfully stalks away to the showers, trying to hide the blush that he knows is spreading on his cheeks. pretty herbologist or not, yunho's got annoying friends. great friends, but annoying nonetheless.  
+++  
yunho had changed into something a bit softer than his after-practice sweats after he arrived home, hoping to send domestic husband vibes. not that he wanted to be a husband. he just wanted to send the vibes that he could be if he wanted to. he had donned a blue oversized sweater cardigan over a black turtleneck and a comfy pair of skinny jeans, topped off with a white beanie. he had slipped into some doc martens boots (rest in lovely peace to his ankles) and was about to walk out the door, but not before mingi stopped him, frantically coming out of his room to do a once-over.  
“oh, thank god you’re not dressed like a fuckboy,” mingi dramatically places a hand over his heart, as if trying to will it to slow down.  
“i don’t dress like a fuckboy,” yunho sputters loudly as he readjusts his beanie self-consciously.  
mingi huffs out a laugh as he fixes yunho's cardigan so that it isn’t hanging off his shoulders awkwardly. “debatable, but not right now. right now, we have to send you off for your tea date,” he smirks.  
yunho groans. “it's not… it's not a date,” he mutters and looks down, kicking the ground half-heartedly as the other fixes the fringe of his hair.  
“mmm,” mingi hums good-naturedly as he puts his hands on yunho's shoulders and regards him. “even if it isn’t, i’m sure he’ll wish it was when he sees you,” he reassures his friend.  
yunho tucks a nonexistent hair behind his ear shyly. “really? are you sure?”  
mingi’s smile is, for once, not teasing. “i’m sure!” he ushers the other out the door and gives his butt a comforting pat. “have fun at tea time, hyung!” and with that, mingi shuts the door, and yunho is on his own.  
+++  
hongjoong is sitting quietly on his living room couch and reading a book when yunho appears from the floo network fireplace, coughing slightly from the ash that surrounds him. he puts his book away and smiles as he stands to walk over and grasp yunho's hand, and he tries his best not to blush at how tiny hongjoong’s hand is in his own.  
“hey,” the elder says as he retracts his hand and puts both in his pockets and looks yunho up and down. "you look good," he says offhandedly, and yunho tries not to preen, before continuing. “i started on some blends, but it’ll be a while before we find the perfect one, there are so many herbs to go through,” hongjoong presses his lips into an apologetic smile.  
yunho waves his hands, a bit too frantic and slightly spooked by being complimented so casually. “no, no, it’s cool!” he shakes his head and he feels his beanie slip a little from the force of it. “thanks for helping, it’s really nice of you!”  
hongjoong nods as he turns towards the kitchen and dining area, making a gesture that means for yunho to follow him. “anything for seonghwa-hyung’s favorite quidditch player,” he says easily, and yunho's brows shoot up to his forehead.  
“i’m his what?” yunho can’t stop the bright blush that creeps into his cheeks.  
hongjoong frowns. “you didn’t know? oh dear, well now i feel bad for telling you.”  
“no, wait, it’s cool! it’s super chill dude, i’m just uh, surprised.” hongjoong cocks, a questioning look in his eyes, and yunho has to stop himself from calling him cute out loud. “it's just that, uh, most people’s favorites are people like wooyoung or joohyuk, or maybe even kyungmoon. not that i’d ever tell him that. his ego is big enough as it is. but, yeah, i didn’t really expect that… ahaha,” he adds the laugh to hopefully offset every other awkward thing he said, but he thinks he just made it weirder.  
the other nods slowly, but he doesn’t seem to be judging yunho, which is a good thing at least. “i see what you mean. still, though, you shouldn’t be so surprised.” he pulls out a chair for yunho to sit in at their dining table, and goes to their kitchen, which is an open area right across from it to put the kettle on. “from what i’ve been forced to see by seonghwa, you’re pretty good at what you do,” he turns and smiles reassuringly.  
yunho knows hongjoong is probably just being polite, but it still warms his heart to hear the words. he looks down, smiling like an idiot, probably. “thanks, hongjoong-ssi.”  
“hongjoong-hyung,” hongjoong corrects as he pulls out a couple of empty tea bags and a few metal tins. he then brings them over to the table and sits directly across from yunho. “and here are the herbs, we’re going to be using today, hopefully, we’ll be able to bag something by the time you leave today.”  
hongjoong pulls out an assortment of different herbs, naming them as he pulls them out. he shows yunho feverfew (“it’s bitter but it’s effective, much like seonghwa-hyung” hongjoong muses), valerian root (“this makes a very woody tea, which is much to my taste”), dittany (“we better add this to every tea blend, it does great things for you, and you don’t need too much of it to be effective, much like a short king”) and several others. after going through about ten types, hongjoong sighs contentedly as he pours the boiling water from the kettle into the mugs he retrieved for them, the steam wisping up to his face. he looks pretty. he brews up a blend of valerian, peppermint, and feverfew, with just a bit of dittany as promised, and passes the mug over to yunho, who takes it graciously.  
“no honey?” yunho questions, cocking his head to the side as he lets the tea bags steep.  
hongjoong shrugs, tapping the mug. “not a huge fan of the way it makes certain teas taste.” he considers his mug for a moment, his lips curling imperceptibly. “also i’m too lazy to get up again.”  
yunho nods. they’re enveloped in silence again as they wait for the tea to steep and yunho wracks his brain for something to say. “herbology, huh?” he blurts finally, and then cringes at the way it sounds. “what’s it like?” he clarifies.  
hongjoong looks surprised at the question. “it’s not that interesting,” he murmurs into his cup. “at least, it’s no quidditch.”  
yunho frowns. “that’s not true, i’m sure it’s plenty interesting.”  
the elder smiles shyly. “thanks.” he plays with a strand of his hair. “herbology? it’s pretty interesting. there’s a lot of fauna you have to memorize, and getting qualifications for it was hell, but once you got it, you got it, i guess. and you can use the knowledge for a lot of things! making tea blends is both my side job and hobby, i mostly work with a lot of healers and potion makers and gardeners, pretty much anyone who needs something to do with plants. i also write a lot of research papers, especially when i discover something new in the greenroom. plus there’s the day to day maintenance, and i have to do the clippings and the prunings and sometimes i miss a plant and then it dies because i didn’t take care of it, which is just heartbreaking. ugh, there’s so much to be done in herbology that it always keeps me really busy. which is fine. i don’t really go out much, anyway, for more reasons that one.” he stares down at the table. “i don’t usually talk about my practice much, so if you get bored, you can, um, stop me.”  
yunho, who had been hanging off his every word, shook his head hastily. “i’m not bored! it’s very interesting, hyung, don’t know why you’d think that.”  
he laughs, and then takes a sip of his tea, humming. “tell that to my past dates.”  
“they’re stupid, then,” the younger says immediately. hongjoong blushes at that, and yunho thinks he looks even prettier now. he clears his throat, eager to move on quickly before he embarrassed himself. “where did you get your qualifications at?”  
hongjoong brightened. “oh, i went to the jirisan institute for my secondary learning and naejangsan academy for primary. that’s where i met hyung, actually.”  
the quidditch player gasps in surprise. “mingi and i went to jrsi too! that’s where i met kyungmoon-hyung, the captain of our quidditch team. but i met mingi at hallasan academy.”  
hongjoong whistles. “hlsa? prestigious. very famous for their herbology courses, always wanted to take one of them.”  
yunho coughs. “uh, yeah, it’s, uh, it was cool. njsa is pretty cool, too. always wanted to see the trees in autumn,” he takes a long sip of his tea afterward.  
the elder shrugs. “they’re really nice to look at the first three years, and then the next seven they’re kind just, there, i guess. not bad to look at, but nothing new either.” he presses his lips together and then his eyes shoot open. “wait, you said you went to jrsi?”  
“yeah!” yunho savors the woody taste of the blend. the tea is now a bearable kind of hot, and it warms him up. “kyungmoon and i were on the same team there, too. except i was a chaser, then,” he smiles fondly at the memories. “they moved me to keeper after our old one left, though.”  
“i never knew that,” hongjoong pouts and takes another small sip of his tea, and yunho tries really hard not to send him too obvious of a lovesick look. “then again, i wasn’t really that involved in things outside my expertise. hyung was probably aware of that, though. i only met mingi through an elective class that involved both herbology and magizoology and how they affect each other, that was a fun class.”  
“he’s never mentioned you before, though,” yunho swirls his tea. “then again, he never mentioned seonghwa-hyung to me either, so there’s that too.”  
hongjoong raises his eyebrows at the mention of seonghwa, but doesn’t comment on it. “yeah, we were more of acquaintances, then. he contacted me about a year after my graduation to help with his research.” yunho nods. mingi had started his research almost immediately after they’d graduated, and he’d probably used close sources to do so.  
“oh!” hongjoong gasps, startling the younger. “what did you specialize in, yunho-yah? if you don’t mind me calling you that.”  
yunho’s heart warms at how casually hongjoong says his name. “i specialized in charms and took some pre-auror courses. i was always pretty good at it, so once i retire from quidditch i might teach or something.”  
the herbologist nods, smiling. “i never would have expected that from you, but it fits.” yunho grins.  
the younger finishes the last of his tea, a bit disappointed. “i’m done with my tea,” he tells hongjoong, who smiles. “onto the next blend, then.”  
they make three cups of tea in total, that afternoon, and hongjoong stops them only because too much dittany can be harmful to the body, and hongjoong doesn’t want to risk it. by the time they’re done, seonghwa is home, and he offers to cook something while the two are busy. yunho asks to invite mingi, who was probably at home alone, and he wanted another pillar to lean one while he was in the presence of two people who were way out of his league. while they wait for mingi, seonghwa tells yunho that he’s finally found a spell that could find even the most elusive of curses in his system.  
“the spell will take about an hour to fully administer, and then we’ll finally be able to tell if the migraines are of magical origin or if they’re just a really unfortunate biological development,” seonghwa sips the grapefruit yogurt soju cocktail he had made while waiting for mingi, who had taken so long that seonghwa got a little creative in the meantime. “and once that’s over with, if it’s a curse, then we can get a wandmaker to try and trace it back to a specific wand.”  
“we can contact yeosang-ssi? he’ll probably be back from the wandmakers convention soon and it’s not like he has anything else to do,” hongjoong says while trying to lick some of the sauce from the bulgogi kimchi pizza off the corner of his mouth. “and if he does, tell him to cancel. he’d do it just for you, hyung,” he smirks.  
yunho and mingi, who had finally arrived fifteen minutes ago, looked at seonghwa questioningly, who smiled, though a bit exasperated. “hongjoong-ah has it in his head that yeosang-ah has some crush on me. it’s only admiration. i think.”  
“say what you will,” hongjoong huffs. “i know what i see with my own two eyes.”  
“hongjoong-ah, you’re halfway to being legally blind.”  
“i’ll have you know that i recently have been regularly wearing my contacts.”  
“recently.”  
“...shut up,” hongjoong pouts and takes a large bite out of his slice of pizza and chews dejectedly.  
mingi snickers. “jeez, hyung, i know i call you old, but that’s a whole other level of elderly antics.”  
yunho punches mingi lightly in the shoulder. “hyung isn’t old,” he argues.  
“thank you, yunho-yah, you’re the only one i tru-”  
“he’s bordering middle-aged,” yunho bites into his pizza to hide his smile as hongjoong gasps in betrayal.  
“you’re all the worst,” he mutters, sipping his soju cocktail, but he looks amused, so they all know they’re in the clear. it’s becoming increasingly clear to yunho that hongjoong is nothing but a big softie, and this realization does a number on his emotions. it also reinforces the soft spot that yunho's started to develop for the elder, the one that he’s been trying to ignore.  
but looking at hongjoong grinning at some joke mingi made (which honestly wasn’t that funny as the joke by itself but mingi’s delivery really hit the mark), he thinks he might have to deal with it sooner rather than later.  
+++  
yunho goes to hongjoong’s apartment a few times the next week just to have tea with him and find the best blend, which is taking longer than usual, apparently. mostly because they always find themselves talking about their week, their jobs, fun little facts from their past.  
hongjoong tells yunho about the time he and seonghwa dueled while at the institute, drunk, while blindfolded (he never explained why that was the case) which ended up with seonghwa completely covered and restricted in flora and fauna due to an enlarging spell that hongjoong cast. the fun part was that not only was dueling forbidden on school grounds, but tampering with the campus plants was greatly frowned upon. it had taken hongjoong ten minutes to stop sobbing drunkenly and apologizing to the plants (“i’m the one literally tied down by plants right now but sure. it’s your plants that are in the most danger right now,” seonghwa had scoffed) and another twenty to figure out the counter-spell to get seonghwa out of his binds.  
yunho tells hongjoong about the time mingi and kyungmoon accidentally broke his broom and then had to glamour the substitute broom to look like his old one until they could save up enough money for the replacement. however, due to the poorly done glamouring and yunho's keen eye, he had known about it the whole time. but he hadn’t mentioned it because their scrambling was entertaining to watch. plus mingi had thrown up on his notes after a particularly horrendous night of drinking too many drinks with a dangerous amount of fizzing whizzbees mixed in, and yunho hadn’t been feeling too forgiving.  
just fun little facts.  
also, conveniently, that week, the migraines seem to be reduced headaches that are still horrible, but bearable enough for yunho to go to quidditch practice and do his job. he just needed to focus a bit more, now.  
it’s the next week that disrupts everything.  
that next week, yunho is hit with a migraine so bad he has to have mingi apparate and carry him on his back into seonghwa’s apartment, who had been preparing due to the frantic letter mingi had sent him fifteen minutes earlier. hongjoong must have also been told what was going on because he had a frozen ice pack ready in his hands as he hovered behind seonghwa, who led yunho to their couch that had been set up with the thought of yunho's comfort in mind. the keeper would have commented on how sweet it was, but currently, he was trying really hard not to feel nauseous.  
he vaguely heard seonghwa say something to mingi about staying with him and hongjoong following, and a few more words were exchanged before yunho felt something cool on his forehead, and he assumed that hongjoong (or mingi, who knows. yunho had his eyes closed) had placed it on him.  
hongjoong came back in after what felt like hours had passed (it was 2 minutes), holding something to yunho's mouth to drink. even in his uncomfortable state, yunho wasn’t one to refuse him, and so he drank down what seemed to be a bitter potion, and he tried very hard not to throw up, focusing on hongjoong’s voice to do so.  
after what was probably minutes (time was passing so slowly), yunho felt the pain subside enough for him to open his eyes, and upon doing so realized just exactly how close hongjoong was.  
the herbologist’s eyes glistened like the reflection of the moon in the pond that had been in the scenic courtyard of the academy. yunho would have liked to walk him through that courtyard. the keeper had waxed poetic to a few people in that exact courtyard, but none of them held a candle to hongjoong, and honestly, that wasn’t even their fault. hongjoong’s silver hair makes him look especially like a child of the moon, a halo of light, and his lips, lovely as per usual, are down-turned, and moving awfully fast, and yunho's slightly concerned because he wonders what-  
“-nho-yah! yunho-yah, can you hear me?” he is pulled from his reverie suddenly by hongjoong audibly distressed tone, and yunho swallows thickly and nods.  
“what happened?” he slurs, trying to blink rapidly, but everything feels even more slower than before.  
“just a temporary potion for pain,” a voice says somewhere from above.  
“god?”  
mingi guffawed loudly, and the sound was harsh on yunho's ear, but not unpleasant. maybe it was hongjoong’s soft giggles so close to him that made the moment not as unpleasant as it could have been, who knows.  
“close, but no cigar,” seonghwa comes into his view, his smile gentle. “we had to give you a potion to both relax you and ease the pain, but the side effects are high disorientation in the first five minutes of administration, and then moderate disorientation for the next two hours. hopefully, that should last for the entirety of me doing the spell.”  
seonghwa pulls out his wand, and motions for the other two to stand back from him. “it’s a non-verbal spell, and i need my utmost concentration for it. hongjoong-ah, go and have some tea with mingi in the green room, please?” it isn’t a request, but seonghwa is nice enough to make it sound like one.  
hongjoong nods, and then pats yunho's shoulder before getting up from what must have been an extremely uncomfortable crouching position to pull mingi with him. mingi sent his best friend the biggest encouraging smile he had, and then the next thing yunho knew, they were gone.  
seonghwa sat on the coffee table, closed his eyes, and started to move his wand in a way that was familiar. it took yunho a few more seconds to realize that he was moving it to form hanja characters, and yunho thought ‘oh boy, this must be an old spell,’. non-verbal hanja magic dated back by at least a century, or more, depending on the spell, and they held power that modern magic just didn’t have. yunho closes his eyes as he starts to feel the weight of the spell, heavy on his neck and forehead. it isn’t suffocating, it feels like the water that presses around him when he submerges his head in the bath to relax, and weirdly enough, after a long while it feels like the water is starting to trickle into his forehead. it permeates through his memories, his thoughts, and probably his subconscious, but he’s not too sure. the water seems to be searching for something, and yunho doesn’t resist it. he lets it do it wants, still and pliant.  
time passes strangely, and after what feels like a few minutes, the water begins to recede slowly, and the feeling is peculiar. once the water subsides, the weight lifts off of him, as if he has reemerged from the bathtub, and he opens his eyes slowly. seonghwa is still sitting across from him, but now his hair is slightly wet from perspiration, beads of sweat rolling down his face. his wand is still in his hand, which is trembling, and he slumps, sighing out a breath, and furrows his brows at yunho, concerned.  
the keeper shifts uncomfortably where he is lying, his limbs feeling foreign to him, probably due to his disorientation, which has yet to wear off. “so?” his voice is rough after not using it for what was probably an hour, so he clears it. “what are your conclusions?”  
seonghwa sighs again, running a hand through his hair. “it’s definitely a curse. a powerful one, at that. whoever cast it is pretty strong, and that curse will only get worse.”  
yunho feels his heart drop. “shit,” he curses under his breath.  
“don’t worry too much,” seonghwa assures him quickly, in a way that yunho thinks should make him worry a lot. “yeosang will come and try and figure out the id, which shouldn’t take too long, and choi san-ssi will try and make you some more potions, hopefully not as disorienting,” seonghwa starts to mumble under his breath, and yunho can see that the exhaustion from performing the spell is getting to him. he tries to place a comforting hand on seonghwa’s knee, but misses it entirely and his brain short circuits as he watches it land quite high, a little too high on seonghwa’s thigh. he flushes, absolutely mortified as he pulls away as fast as he can, but his movements are too slow, and he hears three gasps, and he wants to die on the spot.  
everything still feels like it’s moving in slow motion, and it’s no different when he turns his head to see that hongjoong and mingi are standing only a few feet away, right where they were the last time yunho saw them. the only indication that time had passed was that now they both had leaves and plants in their hair and stuff on their bodies, which was bizarre, but not important to the matter at hand.  
hongjoong’s lips were parted in shock, his eyebrows raised, but he didn’t seem surprised, which makes yunho feel stressed for some reason. he moves his gaze over to mingi, who looks like he’s about to lose it, and yunho can’t take the teasing glint in his eyes, so much so that he turns back towards seonghwa. the healer’s cheeks are just as rosy as yunho's feel, and he looks panicked and stiff, which yunho understands completely.  
“i’m so fucking sorry,” he blurts, and tries to get up, but he’s slow, he’s too slow, he feels like he’s moving through fucking molasses, and his heart sinks as he falls right into seonghwa’s lap, and he thinks this is the worst day of his life as he hears more gasps and mingi’s distinctive chortle.  
seonghwa catches him and smiles bashfully, and yunho genuinely thinks that this must be the face of god. so forgiving, so merciful, and yunho is so thankful that he hasn’t been punched in the face yet. “that potion really did a number on you, huh?”  
the way seonghwa’s holding him feels too much like a tender embrace, and yunho is too embarrassed to do anything, and judging by the fact that everything he’s done in the past five minutes has led to more disaster, he decides to do nothing. instead, he stares imploringly at mingi, who takes pity on him and walks over, still chuckling. mingi throws his arm over his shoulder and lifts him off of seonghwa into a bridal carry.  
now safely in his best friend’s arms, yunho risks a glance in hongjoong’s direction, who looks extremely disinterested in the situation, picking the random brush and leaves out of his hair. yunho’s sighs internally, and honestly he doesn’t know what he expected from the elder but it definitely wasn’t disinterest in the gay disaster that was happening in his living room. at this point, yunho just wants to go home, so he tells mingi that, who nods. he’s having the time of his life, but he senses yunho's discomfort and announces that they will be leaving promptly.  
“yeah, of course,” seonghwa nods a little too quickly, trying to play it cool. “i’ll contact yeosang and uh, tell san to maybe adjust the ingredients in the next potion,” he laughs awkwardly, and yunho nods stiffly from the safety of mingi’s arms, ready to get out of there. he doesn’t even spare another glance at hongjoong, and definitely doesn’t look seonghwa in the eye.  
mingi smirks at yunho's behavior and nods toward the fireplace. “we’ll be on our way, then,” he smiles at the other two, and then carries yunho into the floo network, and then out into the lobby of the first floor. the doorman is still there, and he looks confused as to what is going on but decides to mind his business. he’s seen yunho in too many compromising situations by this point, from how many times he visits seonghwa and hongjoong’s apartment, and he’s used to it now, apparently.  
mingi’s silent until they walk out of the building, but yunho can feel mingi’s eyes burning into him. he ignores it, until he can’t. “stop looking at me,” he mutters.  
mingi quirks his lips into a teasing smile. “you truly are a walking disaster, huh?”  
“shut up, please. i am already wounded, don’t make it worse,” yunho moans, bringing his hands to cover his eyes. once again, however, his body fails him and he almost clips mingi on the nose. the other dodges, thankfully, and he groans, dropping his hands back into his lap. “that potion will forever be the bane of my existence.”  
“i can’t wait to tell kyungmoon-hyung about this,” mingi giggles gleefully.  
yunho can feel an actual headache, not a magically induced migraine, for once, form behind his eyes. tomorrow was going to be long.


	2. part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yunho doesn't remember very much of his last visit to seonghwa and hongjoong's, but what he does know is that it was probably Bad.  
> also, he has brunch with the bros, meets mingi's possible future bf, gets threatened (??) by yeosang (only a little bit), and finds out a fun little thing about hongjoong's heritage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is by no means at all beta-read, but i did edit it down to the best of my ability, i don't think i mentioned that earlier. there will probably be some inconsistencies. also i did as much research as i could on the parts that include korean culture but if i am Wrong please let me know so i can amend it lol. there are also some (?) inconsistencies due to the fact that i left this story alone for a month in between writing this second part so sorry!! for those!!
> 
> anyways with all those warnings aside, hope you enjoy and please don't hesitate to leaves kudos and/or a comment! :)

today was going to be long.  
yunho had woken up that morning with a start, mostly because mingi had come in and jumped on his bed to wake him up.  
he blinked at the sun streaming in from the large window, groaning as he covered his eyes. mingi must have opened them to ensure that yunho wouldn’t fall back asleep, and with good cause. if it was dark enough, yunho could fall asleep at any time, any place. the elder can smell something good wafting in from the kitchen, and he would usually be much more appreciative of mingi’s efforts in the kitchen were it not for the fact that he felt like the human representation of that weird taste you get when you drink water from a cup that has just had orange juice in it.  
right now, the said the younger man was wrapped around yunho, probably trying to make him warm enough with his body heat to where he would want to get out of bed. or he just wanted to cuddle. or both, yunho could honestly never tell. he sighs dramatically, before asking, “do you remember what you did yesterday?”  
yunho has no idea what he’s talking about, but from the light playful tone that mingi uses that is synonymous with the morning after yunho had gone out partying, drunk too much gingerfire baekseju, and confessed his love to both a potted plant, several moving paintings, and kyungmoon (which was unfortunate. he will never live that one down). he tries to remember, but bits and pieces are missing. all he remembers is being mortified and wanting to crawl in a small hole, which didn’t make yunho want to remember what he did any quicker.  
“no…” he trailed off, confused. “are you going to, um, tell me what i did?” yunho asks, but he really hopes mingi won’t enlighten him.  
the smirk that adorns mingi’s face, however, makes him regret that wish. “i’ll let you figure that out yourself,” he presses a soft kiss to yunho's forehead, which yunho appreciates, and then drags yunho out of bed, which yunho appreciates less, but knows is for the best. his sheets are now strewn awkwardly on the bed and the floor, but yunho can’t bring himself to care at the moment, too tired and too busy holding onto mingi so that he doesn’t fall. “come on, i made you some porridge and stuff,” mingi tries to entice him with food, just to make the process of getting to the kitchen quicker.  
yunho decides, after a second of two more of being dragged across the hard and cold wood flooring, to walk on his own, preferring to zombie walk after mingi, who was uncharacteristically awake before yunho was, the keeper now realizes.  
“why are you awake right now?” yunho mumbles out when he finally makes his way to their dining table and sits down, mingi already sitting across from him. the magizoologist had been kind enough to have everything on the table set by the time yunho had sat down, which was a nice change of pace from yunho making them breakfast most of the time. which confused yunho even more, because on his break days, yunho slept in, but he always woke up earlier than mingi. the situation was starting to feel more suspicious, the more yunho started to wake up.  
“hmm?” mingi stuffs a spoonful of porridge into his mouth just a slight bit too innocently, and now the elder is on alert. not high alert, but alert enough, he thinks.  
yunho squints at the clock, and then does a double-take. “why am i awake at half past 7 am on one of my break days?” he raises an eyebrow in mingi’s direction, who just coughs in a way that is probably meant to be nonchalant but is anything but that. “i was supposed to run errands and have brunch with the bros later,” he sulked.  
“when we got back yesterday, you passed out pretty early, and so, uh,” mingi scratched the back of his head, blushing. “i contacted san-sunbae to see if he could get you any potions quickly, since they’re getting worse and stuff…. so he’s coming in about uh, an hour or so, since that’s the only time he’s available today. plus,” he added, raising both a finger and his eyebrows. “because it’s so early, by the time brunch comes around, you’ll be hungry again!”  
yunho blinked. “oh. okay, then. i guess that works. thanks, mingi,” he takes a slice of toasted bread off the plate just a little away in front of him and dips it into his porridge. “why are you blushing, though?” he wonders aloud, and mingi bites his lip.  
“no reason.”  
“huh,” yunho pops the piece of bread into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “that sounds like an awfully suspicious response, but i don’t have the energy to pester you about it, so i won’t,” he shrugs. “you’re safe from my questions. for now.” yunho is starting to think that mingi woke him up at this time specifically for the reason that he’s too tired to refuse or question anything he says. whatever potion he drank yesterday must have done a number on him.  
“how's research going?" he asks instead, taking a bite of the eggs mingi prepared. they're pretty good for his cooking, and yunho is once again both appreciative and apprehensive that mingi was being so kind to him this morning. or as kind as mingi got (which was pretty kind, to be quite honest).  
mingi's face brightens, and the other man smiles. "research is really good!" he goes into a monologue on how magic seems to vary by culture, and that the magic of the creatures found natively in that culture had a major influence on the magic that the wizards and witches would practice. "children of the moon, for example," mingi explains. "are a huge part of our culture, but they're pretty rare now. but their relative species, the children on the sun, or veelas, as they're called, common in europe, so it's easier to study their effects and stuff but anyways. if you compare veela magic to european magic, you find that the correlation tends to be way stronger in the parts where veela are mostly found. so, my theory is, because of interspecies mixing, that's how magic might have found its way into human lineages. and that's why there are muggle-borns and stuff. might it be a recessive gene? gosh, i didn't consider that before…. but yeah, back to moonchildren. i definitely think that some of korean magic derives from moonchildren, there are too many similarities between eastern european magic and our magic, with just a few differences. man, i wish we had more moonchildren around," mingi sighs out a large breath.  
yunho nods, the legend on the moonchildren was common knowledge to korean wizards and warlocks. the moonchildren had been the rumored children the sun and moon who took after myeongwol, the moon. they had lived in tandem with humans for hundreds of years, and their cultures were so intertwined that they began to mix, and many believed that korean wizards originated from mixing with moonchildren. however, some wizards, mostly european, had set out to capture the moonchildren because of their calm disposition and affinity for powerful ancient magic in comparison to the sunchildren. while the moonchildren were powerful, they were hunted by wizards because of their high value. so many of the moonchildren and their relatives had gone into hiding and tried to pass off as regular wizards. the last known sighting of a moonchild had been in the late 1700s.  
“i'm sure you’ll figure something out,” yunho assured as he puts some egg on a slice of bread.  
mingi quirked his lips in mild irritation. “it just sucks… we'll just have to see.” he looked at the clock and made a noise of surprise. “time flew, we have about twenty or thirty minutes before san-sunbae gets here.” mingi started gathering the plates that were empty. “finish up and then go and wash up, please. i want him to have a good impression of us,” and then he made his way behind the island and into the kitchen, where yunho couldn’t comfortably interrogate him about this san man and why he was so worked up about him visiting like he wanted to. mingi usually would have used magic to clean the dishes, and washing dishes was a thing he did usually to calm himself down, which kept on rising yunho's suspicions.  
yunho pouted and then finished up his breakfast. he used a spell to clean his dishes and then made his way to their bathroom to make himself look presentable, at least.  
while in the shower, he tried to think of what he had done yesterday that had mortified him so much. did he accidentally say something mean? that couldn’t be possible, there wasn’t a single mean thing that yunho could possibly say about either seonghwa or hongjoong, they were both too nice. he also couldn’t have ruined or broken anything in their apartment, because mingi would be breathing down his neck to use his “hefty quidditch funds” to get them something even better. so he must have simply just embarrassed himself? but how? he remembered maybe falling on something, what he fell on he didn’t remember. maybe it was something that was just embarrassing. but even when he came to that conclusion, yunho felt that that wasn’t right either. maybe close, but not right.  
well, he would find out sooner or later, he reasoned with himself as he got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. so it was better not to dwell on it for too long.  
he made himself presentable by putting an oversized yellow sweater and some grey sweats, and found that to be presentable enough for their incoming guest, and enough for brunch later. he had doubts of that conclusion, however, when he exited his room and found mingi dressed in the most non-casual casual clothes he had. from his meticulously styled hair to his fake spectacles to his favorite cream-white sweater with the deep v-neck that was tucked into his best skinny jeans, in both mingi and yunho's opinion that is, he was dressed like he might have a date. yunho was slowly starting to piece together the reason that mingi might have been in such a tizzy this morning  
“wow, you really brought out the husband material cardigan, huh?” yunho sauntered over to where mingi was fussing over the pillows on the couch. he looked closer at him and whistled. “you even put in earrings? adorable.”  
mingi huffed as yunho plopped down on the couch, sufficiently ruining the work that he’d done to make it all neat. he pulled the loose black and grey plain cardigan closer around him, and sniffed, eyes cast down at yunho, who was making himself very comfortable on their couch. “i have literally no idea what you’re talking about. also, you ruined my set up,” he pouted.  
yunho hummed. “you look hot, love, don’t worry about it,” he snatched one of the magazines that mingi had probably artfully placed on the coffee table, only to have his hand smacked by the said man. “ow!” he yelped, rubbing his hand.   
“do i really look okay?” mingi placed the magazine back in its place nervously.  
“goodness, dude, you’re cute as shit. this san guy won’t know what hit him,” yunho assured him. “also, again, ow.”  
“sorry,” mingi flopped down onto yunho, who groaned from the sudden weight. however, before either of them could say anything, the bell that sounded whenever someone stood within the threshold of their door for too long went off. “he’s here!” mingi frantically got up to answer the door. yunho, to appear as though he had been busy beforehand, grabbed the exact magazine he had planned on reading before he was brutally attacked.  
after he heard a bit of exchanged pleasantries, the two walked into the living room area, and yunho got to finally see just exactly who mingi was crushing on.  
choi san was shorter than mingi, but not by that much, from what yunho could see. he was handsome, with an impressive bone structure, pretty eyes, and good eyebrows. he wore a black woven turtleneck and a black leather jacket, with some ripped black jeans and some black velvet boots. he had long, dark wavy hair that looked messy in an artful way, which he could appreciate. his aura gave off bad boy type, but the smile his lips curled into screamed soft.  
“hello, my name is choi san, i'm the potion maker who is making your medication, nice to meet you,” he bowed, and his voice was a lot softer than yunho expected.  
yunho stood and bowed his head. “i’m jeong yunho, and i’m grateful, thanks,” he smiled, and san grinned wider, and his dimples grew deeper, and yunho was starting to see why san might make mingi’s heart just a bit weak.  
“mingi-yah here talks a lot about you, it’s nice to finally meet you in person,” san goes to shake his hand, and yunho reciprocates, and pats it just for good measure.  
“i’m sure mingi was trying to hide you away from me for a while, so it’s nice to meet you finally as well,” yunho sits back down and smirks in his roommate’s direction as san gives him a confused look. mingi clears his throat quickly.  
“anyway,” he interrupts their greeting and gestures towards yunho. “san-sunbae, you had potions to give yunho-hyung, right?”  
“i thought i asked you to be comfortable with me, we’re literally the same age,” san frowned. mingi smiled brightly and shrugged, gesturing towards his roommate again. the potion maker sighed and then grabbed a small bag out of the inside of his jacket. “here,” he handed a small parcel to yunho, who took it into his hands gingerly. the parcel was slightly heavy, but yunho expected that. he opened it and found a clear bottle filled with a light blue liquid that fit well into his hand with a dropper at the top. “drop four drops of this into any of your drinks, especially the teas that have been brewed for you. this potion is supposed to help you, but if it doesn’t, tell mingi to contact me immediately. i have a couple other brews going on that might help, so i'm just an owl away.”   
yunho nodded and placed the bottle in his pocket. “thanks so much, choi san-ssi.”  
“please just be comfortable with me, anything for my favorite magizoologist’s best friend,” san joked while patting yunho on the back. “and from what mingi-yah here and seonghwa-hyung told me, i owe you an apology for overestimating your measurements yesterday.”  
mingi, who had been silent during the exchange, rolled his eyes while yunho pursed his lips in confusion. “first of all, i told you who yunho was and you literally jumped out of your seat so fast you almost knocked over your, very illegal, might i add, luck potion.” mingi then whispered conspiratorially in yunho's direction, “he’s a fan. second of all, yunho has literally no recollection of what he did yesterday.”  
“i wanted to see if i could make it properly!” san protested, and mingi shrugged. “and perhaps… that other part is close to the truth.” he tucked a piece of hair behind his ear as mingi simpered. “also,” san turned on yunho with a slightly chaotic energy that had yunho backing away a bit. “you don’t… remember?”  
yunho swallowed, and he felt that he was about to remember very soon. “uh, no?”  
san looked delighted. “you don’t remember putting the moves on seonghwa-hyung accidentally yesterday? he wrote a very distressed letter to me berating me for my slight oversight about the whole ordeal, it was all very entertaining.”  
mingi tried to choke back laughter, and yunho was having something close to a religious experience as he felt yesterday’s memories hit him.  
hand on the thigh.   
falling into a lap. tender embrace?  
hongjoong looking away.  
‘hongjoong looked away,’ yunho felt his shoulders slouch. “god, i wish those memories were still repressed.”  
“oh, yunho-hyung,” mingi meandered over to where yunho was sitting to pull him into a comforting hug and pat on the butt, and while yunho was very much feeling the love and appreciated it plenty, from the look on san’s face, this situation was being misinterpreted. and yunho would rather let the sejong salamanders drag him by his broom than have mingi’s love life set back because of him.  
luckily, he didn’t have to awkwardly set the record straight because san gave the perfect opportunity to do so. “oh! you guys are together?”  
mingi’s eyes widened comically. “oh, no, oh god, no, went down that track once, never again.”  
“again?” san said weakly.  
though yunho felt the same, he felt it was within his rights to feel defensive for the sake of his sixteen-year-old self. “it literally was not that bad, stop being dramatic,” he whined.  
“those three months were literally just us being friends but we got to both awkwardly and badly, might i add, kiss. 4/10, would only recommend because of the hand holding and forehead kisses. nothing more,” mingi teased, and yunho snickered while punching him in the arm, and san looked between the two in even more confusion.  
“so, uh, you’re not? dating?” san scratched the back of his neck, eyes hopeful.  
mingi couldn’t stumble over his words quickly enough. “no, not at all. nope. there isn’t a single person in my life currently, haha. yeah.”  
there was about a beat or two of silence, and yunho knew he had to come to his best friend’s rescue, as the other had for him last night. “yeah, so i'm gonna go to wooyoung’s for brunch, are you guys cool here?”  
mingi’s brain circuits seemed to snap back into place. “yeah! totally cool! san’s gonna help me with research, aren’t you san?”  
“what?” san faltered. “uh, yeah, dude! absolutely, anything for you.”  
“what?”  
“huh?”  
“okay!” yunho interrupted, clapping his hands together, smiling at the two. “you guys have fun here, i’m leaving,” yunho patted his pockets, and was reminded of the fact that he had left his wand in his room. “i’ll go and get my wand, and then i’ll be out of your hair.”  
he hurried to his room, and hoped the best for the two as he grabbed his wand. “bye!” he called out to the apartment and apparated without waiting for an answer.  
if the fates would have it, mingi might finally have someone else to talk for hours about magical creatures to.  
yunho could only hope.  
+++  
wooyong’s apartment was the nicest out of the trio’s, hidden away in one of the nicest alleys of gangnam. the magic of the apartment complex was much more complicated than that of yunho's, and much like all the other apartments in the south korean cities used the extension charm to make the apartment bigger and more suitable for wizards. wooyoung’s complex was looked after by some of the prestigious wizard architects and as a result, was appropriately exquisite.  
his apartment had a style that could most likely be described modernly homey, with a nice exposed brick wall for the kitchen and a sleek modern dining set up, with a generous amount of light fixtures around for some whimsy. actually, to be quite frank, yunho couldn’t describe the style of wooyoung’s home, but it was definitely a fun place to host their biweekly brunches at.  
they had started the brunches mostly for good luck, after the first time they had brunch, they had won their first national game after months of being the underdog. jongho, wooyoung, yunho, and kyungmoon were the only ones left from the original team from that time, and while sometimes individuals were busy (like kyungmoon, this time, who had taken their current time off to visit family), they tended to keep up the tradition rather well.  
they all helped cook the brunch, yunho taking care of the dakjuk, wooyoung taking care of the street toast sandwiches, and jongho took care of the vegetable pancakes and the gyeran-mari. the types of foods were divided based on their strengths, and it was for the best. when cooking, they spoke quidditch strategy, jongho being the main strategist of their team, for his cleverness and competitiveness was truly formidable, and wooyoung and yunho were great for bouncing ideas off of. when eating, though, that was for catching up and gossip.  
“so,” wooyoung started, biting into one of the pancakes. “this headache thing, where are we at with that?” jongho nodded in earnest, his mouth chewing on the sandwiches.  
yunho quirked his eyebrows, remembering the events of the morning, hesitant. “uh... about that….”  
jongho didn’t wait to finish chewing. “dude, please tell us what’s going on so i know whether to involve you in my dream team or not,” he tried to joke, but yunho could tell that he was more concerned than he let on.  
“so apparently,” yunho started after he took a sip of water. “i was cursed by a powerful wizard to have debilitating headaches and uh, if i don’t get that figured out then i might, um, die?”  
wooyoung choked and jongho coughed quite violently, in yunho's opinion at least.   
“yunho, what the fuck?!” wooyoung gasped after gaining his ability to breathe again.  
jongho put down his sandwich and rubbed at his temples. “you mean to tell me that these migraines are… fatal? like seriously dude?” jongho looked yunho in the eyes, his face somber. “hey, yunho… please say this is a prank.”  
“if this is retaliation for that prank we pulled a month ago, we honestly deserve it but don’t you think this is a little cruel?” wooyoung took the keeper’s hand into his, his eyes imploring.  
“i really wish i could say it isn’t, but it’s true,” yunho grimaced, and his teammates visibly deflated at that. “but,” he tried to improve the mood, “the healer i’m seeing is going get a wandmaker to try and find the person who did it, and i think i’m gonna try and find a countercurse, if i have the time.”  
wooyoung frowned still. “true as that may be, do you know how much time you have? to figure all that out?”  
yunho hadn’t thought of that. “i have… enough time.”  
jongho’s brow creased. “you hadn’t thought about that, had you?”  
“no,” yunho groaned, hanging his head. “gosh, i was so preoccupied with embarrassing myself i forgot to ask.”  
“how’d you embarrass yourself?” wooyoung cocked his head to the side. though he cared very much for his friend’s wellbeing, he couldn't pass up both the possibilities of lightening the mood and some gossip.  
“you guys know about the really hot healer and the absolutely ethereal herbologist?” yunho asked, shoving a spoonful of dakjuk into his mouth.  
jongho raised his eyebrows and shared a glance with wooyoung. “not really, but please, do go on.”  
yunho sighed. “so, um, i enlisted the help of this healer, and he did a spell to figure out all the tragic information i just told you guys.”  
“that’s kind of fun,” wooyoung bit into a sandwich.  
yunho winced. “uh, not really? because the potion they gave me made me feel like i was moving through molasses, and all my movements were super slow, way to slow and so-”  
“and so?” jongho picked up a bit of kimchi to eat with his vegetable pancake.  
“-and so i may or may not have accidentally caressed the healer’s thigh and also fallen into his lap and-”  
“hyung, you absolute disaster,” jongho wheezed and wooyoung tried to hold back his laughter.  
“please, do continue,” the latter gasped.  
yunho hid behind his hands. “and he held me in his arms and it was weird because his really cute herbologist roommate saw it happen and he didn’t look affected at all by the entire spectacle, which sucked-”  
“oh my gosh, wait what?” wooyoung put his hand up. “full stop. cute herbologist roommate? is yunho crushing on someone?” his smile widened, a little too cat-like for yunho's liking.  
jongho sniffed, looking into the far distance. “haven’t seen that since the tragedy that was your crush on kyungmoon so many years ago.”  
“please... never mention that again, that was such a dark time,” yunho sunk more into himself. “it honestly doesn’t even count as a crush it literally died, like, the minute i spoke to him.”  
“still,” wooyoung clasped his hands in front of him. “this is very big news, and we should definitely celebrate.”  
“wooyoung, dude, we are not making yunho join your one-man morning drinker club.”  
“that was literally one time!”  
yunho pinched the bridge of his nose. “okay, right, my heart now warms at the sight of someone, but that means nothing if they don’t like me back.”  
“you don’t know that for sure!” jongho protested. “you’re a definite catch yunho.”  
wooyoung nodded in agreement. “we wouldn’t hand off the top bachelor of the year award to each other every year or so were that not the case, babe.”  
yunho sighed and pursed his lips, propping his head. “maybe so. still, he just, he just doesn’t seem interested? plus we’re friends now! and i don’t want to ruin that by being weird.”  
jongho sighed, disappointed but not surprised. “that sounds stupid but i support you, i guess.”  
wooyoung pursed his lips. “i feel you on that, yunho. maybe next crush!” he tried to smile, but it came out more like an awkward grimace.  
yunho was appreciative of his friends’ gesture, but their fun brunch was getting a little too sad for his taste so he changes topics. “jongho, hey, how is the little league coaching going?”  
jongho, who was the youngest on their team and therefore got the short end of the stick more than not, had to coach the young elite wizards of seoul in the sport of quidditch every other week and switched off with another member of the team. “oh, don’t even get me started on those gremlins, dude. they’re worse than my little muggle cousins, but this time with magic that gets stronger the later it is in the day, which is hell.” he launches into several stories about their antics. wooyoung half-heartedly interjects a few times in defense of the annoying pureblood children, but even he feels for jongho’s suffering, humming sympathetically from the sidelines. yunho grins.   
the gloomy brunch is avoided.  
+++  
yunho tried to avoid going to the apartment for as long as he could. but at some point, mingi (and his career) wouldn’t let him avoid his problems any longer. that and mingi told him that seonghwa was sad and felt that he had scared yunho off when if anything, their roles were switched. he couldn’t go on knowing that seonghwa felt that way and so, he scheduled a meeting at the apartment about two weeks after the inciting incident.  
and quite frankly, yunho was eager to go back, mostly because his tea-making skills did not hold a candle to hongjoong’s and he wanted to try and see if the potion san gave him would work better with a much more well-crafted tea. also, his team’s sponsors were getting antsy about yunho's condition, and several of them had been pressuring kyungmoon, who was pressuring yunho, and it was simply too much stress when he could just avoid it by going to the healer for help. his team was one thing, but the sponsors were not above taking drastic measures to ensure their team’s success, and yunho really didn’t want it to come to that.  
that was how yunho found himself on the couch of the two’s living room, sitting awkwardly next to hongjoong, who had yelped and almost dropped his mug when yunho had appeared from the fireplace ten minutes ago. (“i forgot you were coming,” he had explained as he cleaned the small drops of hot chocolate off the floor.) they were waiting for seonghwa, who had yet to get off his shift from his clinic and would be coming home at any moment.  
“uh,” hongjoong spoke up after what seemed like an hour but was probably five minutes. yunho jumped at the sudden noise, and hongjoong cleared his throat. “so, um, how have you been?”  
yunho rubbed his neck. “uh, pretty good. been doing good, i mean. the practice is fine, mingi’s doing well, so, uh, yeah.”  
hongjoong hummed agreeably, looking straight ahead. “how’s that crush of yours?”  
yunho turned towards him at breakneck speed. “huh?!” how did hongjoong know? he’d only just realized this a couple of weeks ago, how did hongjoong guess when they hadn’t seen each other in days? was yunho's pining that obvious? how could he ever show his face ever again? this was bad, this was really very bad.  
hongjoong raised an eyebrow at him. “the one you have on seonghwa?”  
yunho blinked. “oh,” he felt his chest heave with relief. “oh, no, he’s not the one i have a crush on,” he waved his hand dismissively.  
“who do you like, then, if not seonghwa?” hongjoong looked down, eyebrows furrowed, confused. yunho thinks it’s a cute look on him. “if you don’t mind me asking, i mean. seonghwa’s really, uh, attractive?” hongjoong gestured, trying to help his words make sense. “like, i just thought, um, because you were an absolute blushing mess of a person-”  
“hey!”  
“that i guessed right, but i guess not,” hongjoong sighed, reclining back into the couch.  
“i’ll have you know that i was under the influence of drugs that day, if you don’t remember. and also, the person i like if for me to know, and for you to never find out,” yunho crossed his arms petulantly. ‘hopefully,’ he thought.  
hongjoong quirked his lips. “that’s fair. it must be nice, though, to have the jeong yunho crushing on you,” he sniffed, and yunho really wanted to know what the fuck that meant, but before he could ask anything, seonghwa was coming out of the fireplace, limbs flailing.  
“hey, hey, i’m here!” he exclaimed, brushing stray ashes away from his outfit as he walked over to where the two were sitting. “yunho, glad to see you around again!” he beamed, clearly trying to make yunho comfortable and he was appreciative of it.   
“yep! had to come out of hiding at some point,” yunho chuckled nervously. he hadn’t seen seonghwa in a while, and his last actions towards the elder were probably less than desirable for the other, so he was glad to have been invited over to their home again. though he had apologized profusely in their letter to each other, he still felt a tinge of guilt for putting him in such a situation. he would have to make that up at some point, but for now, he would try not to fuck up this simple interaction.  
“oh!” seonghwa exclaimed. “by the way-”  
before he could finish his sentence, though, a figure emerged gracefully from the fire, ashes following him as he walked lithely to where seonghwa was standing. he was shorter than seonghwa, but much like every friend the man surrounded himself with, was intimidatingly attractive for whatever reason. he had voluminous light silver hair, a bit like hongjoong’s, and was statuesque in his features. yunho could never catch a break.  
“this is kang yeosang, the wandmaker i was telling you about!” seonghwa patted the man’s shoulder excitedly, and the said man smiled, his expression reserved.  
“hello,” he says, and his voice is way deeper than yunho expected, but it’s soft, and yunho wonders what power seonghwa has to just attract people who look and sound like that. “i’ll be examining you today, hope it isn’t too intrusive for you,” he giggles a little, his expression a bit cryptic. yunho was starting to think this man could get away with murder by giggling his way out of it, but that was neither here nor there. he feels the burning gaze of hongjoong and the expectant stares of the other two in the room and clears his voice.  
“right! that’s cool, not my first time in that area of magic as of two weeks ago,” he laughs awkwardly, rubbing his legs.  
yeosang hums and walks over to yunho, pulling out his wand swiftly and tucked his left arm under his right, pointing it casually towards yunho, who jumped at the sudden movement. “oh, yes, seonghwa told me all about that, how do you say... unfortunate event,” his eyes twinkle mischievously as seonghwa squawks in the background. he fixes yunho with a stare that cements him in his place. yunho was also starting to think that yeosang might be one of the most intimidating people he’d ever met, and he’d had to go up against beaters from all kinds of countries. but usually, they were more intimidating because of their build and attitude. yeosang had an energy that seemed to politely request not to fuck with him, for the consequence of that action might mean something extremely undesirable. a little too dangerous for yunho's taste to be quite honest, but he could appreciate it.  
“haha, yeah,” he croaks out as seonghwa waves his hands, in a panic.  
“don’t worry, he knows you didn’t mean anything by it!” the elder clarifies, and then comes to stand next to yeosang, who has yet to put his wand down and is still unreadable. yunho is mildly uncomfortable. plus, he can feel hongjoong staring at him from beside him, which does nothing to calm his nerves. he hangs onto seonghwa’s nonchalant energy to center himself and tries for a smile again.  
yeosang nods imperceptibly, and then smiles. ‘he has pretty teeth,’ yunho thinks absently, and then startles, brought swiftly back down to earth when yeosang suddenly moves closer to him. “i’m going to perform a searching spell, to see if i can identify the wand that cursed you,” he sits delicately on the coffee table across from him, his lips curling into what yunho hopes is supposed to be a reassuring smile.  
“is it going to hurt him?” hongjoong speaks for the first time since they were interrupted by the other two, and yunho is very touched by his show of slight concern. seonghwa, who at some point during the minute that yunho had been focused on the wandmaker had gone to sit on hongjoong’s other side to observe the going-ons nodded.  
yeosang cocks his head to the side, thinking. “i don’t think so… i haven’t performed this spell in a while, but i do believe that if it did i would have had a potion made for him,” yeosang looks towards yunho seriously. “i would never perform a spell that i think might severely hurt someone.”  
yunho sighed a breath of relief, but yeosang was not done talking.  
“at least, i wouldn’t if they don’t deserve it,” yeosang finishes airily and then flicks his wand, and yunho feels his hair move away from his forehead.  
yunho coughs to try and shake off the slight fear, and he hears hongjoong gasp quietly beside him. “yunho, you should definitely wear your hair up more like that,” he hears seonghwa say amicably from his right, but he’s focused on the way yeosang is moving his wand, in the middle of performing the spell.  
“i have to agree,” the man says, his concentration on the voiceless spell never breaking, but he still somehow manages to sound relaxed. “you should feel just a slight intrusion in your mind, but don’t worry, i’m just poking around.”  
yunho raises an eyebrow. “can you, um, see anything in there?”  
“don’t worry, i can’t read your thoughts or deepest desires or anything,” yeosang smiles. “not that i need a spell to do that, though,” he casts a quick glance at hongjoong and then gives yunho a knowing look, which the keeper ignores pointedly. “the spell searches for traces of magic, and every wand has a signature trace, an identifier of sorts, and i’m going to try and find that. this should only take a few minutes, and no more than seven, to be exact.” he seems to be done casting when he presses the end of his wand into yunho's forehead lightly.  
“oh, okay, cool,” yunho almost nods, but a glance from yeosang stops him. the wandmaker closes his eyes and his expression settles into that of a calm and neutral one.  
for about the first thirty seconds, nothing happens. but then, yunho feels what seems like a tiny air bubble float around in his head, searching high and low for anything that might be foreign from yunho's own magic. the four of them sit silently, watching yeosang search. seonghwa breaks the quiet, however. “hey, yeosang-ah, how was the convention?”  
yeosang doesn’t open his eyes, but he smiles at the show of interest. “extremely boring,” he deadpans. “a few european wandmakers seem to refuse to understand that other countries need wands that suit their culture and therefore are not buying from them, which is unfortunate because if their competence made up for their lack of tact i might be more forgiving, but that is simply not the case. their colleagues were much more open and more talented, so they were an annoyance and nothing more.”  
“oh, did anything else happen?” seonghwa sounds interested, and though yunho can barely see him out of his peripherals, he imagines that he’s leaning in.  
“oh, right,” yeosang’s voice perks slightly. “i met this other wandmaker, didn’t get where they were from, though, but i believe it was somewhere in south america. we had a whole conversation about wandlore and how it translates into our respective cultures, it was fun. he was kind of easy on the eyes, too. taken, though, which is a shame,” he sighs, and hongjoong stiffens beside yunho, and yunho's confused, but he can’t be bothered to concentrate on that too much because of the strange feeling of something foreign drifting around in his mind.  
“you’ve started to think about dating again?” seonghwa’s voice sounds weird to yunho, tighter than usual, if you ask him, even, but he decides to mind his business.  
yeosang quirks an eyebrow, eyes still closed. “i’ve been thinking about it, yes,” he confirms casually. “have yet to actually do anything about it though, it really depends.”   
“depends on what?” hongjoong asks curiously.  
“depends on someone in particular who i won’t mention, but hopefully that will be cleared up soon. i don’t have the time to focus so heavily on my love life when i have so many wands to make, so many guests to please,” yeosang’s voice has a biting edge to it, different from his relaxed disposition, the air suddenly feels heavy, and yunho feels like he’s missing something very important.  
before he can open his mouth and say anything, the pressure from his forehead is gone, and yeosang is pulling away, putting his wand away in his coat pocket and his mouth turning down into a frown. “the wand is definitely a powerful one. it took a while to find, so the caster must be powerful, since the caster tried to hide their own traces. i would say this wand is a cherry-ash combination wood, unyielding, and a dragon heartstring core. i’m not too sure about the length, but i’ll say around 29.4 to 31.7 centimeters. it’s good that it’s part ash, though, because it’ll lose all it’s magic once it’s handed off to someone else, so it must still be with its owner. ash and cherry is a curious combination as well, i’ve never made that before but the cherry seemed high quality, so i’ll contact wandmakers in places that have good cherry blossom trees. we have an easily identifiable wand here, so i’ll contact other wandmakers in about a day or earlier.”  
yunho just barely follows what he says, but he’s glad to hear that it will be easy to find the owner. “oh, that’s really good, thanks so much, kang yeosang-ssi,” he bows his head, and the other waves him off and smiles politely.  
“it was no problem, anything for seonghwa’s friend,” he says easily, standing as he does so. he turns to seonghwa, who yunho can now see is blushing. “now that i’m done, let’s hang out for a bit, hyung,” and for the first time, yunho sees yeosang smile warmly (and prettily, might yunho add) at the elder, and everything clicks into place in yunho's head.  
seonghwa laughs a little too loudly to be normal and looks at hongjoong in panic. hongjoong smiles and turns to take yunho's hand into his (yunho dies a little bit on the inside at just how small hongjoong’s hand is in his, but he must save face) and announces, “yunho and i will be in the greenroom.”  
seonghwa’s face falls, but yeosang brightens, and yunho's awfully confused at both their reactions and the mention of this “greenroom”. but he’s being pulled away off the couch and into the long hallway before he can really question it, being dragged along by hongjoong, who power walks with the ferocity of a quidditch mom until they reach the door at the very end of the hall.  
“why are we leaving?” yunho whispers because he feels like he needs to, huddled close to hongjoong as the elder fishes out a key chain that is filled with color-coded keys.  
hongjoong quickly and expertly sifts through the keys with one hand, still holding yunho's hand with his other. “they need to, uh, talk to each other for a bit.” he finds the key, labeled with a pleasant light green sticker. “alone, they need to talk alone, i mean,” he sticks the key into the lock and murmurs what yunho thinks is a small spell. he raises his head to look to yunho, but startles when he realizes how close they are. he takes a step back, but has yet to let go of yunho. “this is, um, the greenroom,” he says finally after a few beats, hand on the handle. “be careful where you step, alright?”  
yunho didn’t know what he meant by that, but he nodded nonetheless.  
when they entered the room, it finally clicked for him by what everyone meant by the “greenroom”.  
the “room” sprawled out into a field, spanning out at least one kilometer, several different kinds of flora that were just visible to yunho's eyes. the surprising amount of plants almost overwhelmed yunho as he moved his gaze from the towering trees to the abundant ferns to the colorful flowers. the plants were sectioned off by types, and in between the sections of plants was a soft, green grass, the kind that left a temporary imprint when pressed upon by any sort of weight. light shone brighter in some areas, probably artificial, due to the requirements of growth for certain plants, and when yunho looked up to figure out where the light was coming from all he could (just barely) see was glowing orbs of light, but the intensity was a bit too much for him so he looked back down. down to the face of hongjoong, who took in the wonder on the younger’s face with what seemed like pride.  
“here’s where i grow my plants!” hongjoong spread his arms and turned towards yunho, whose mouth had yet to close. “it's not much, for a regular herbologist but i’m getting there,” he scratched the back of his head shyly.  
yunho coughed. “uh... this place is beautiful,” he surveyed the field, and then settled his eyes on a bed of flowers that were shaded, more so than the rest. “what are those?” he points.  
hongjoong hums happily. “those are my night flowers!” he clapped. “they’re the ones that are supposed to bloom at night, i like them a lot. i have yet to obtain actual moonflowers, though, but hopefully, that shipment will come within the next few months or so…” he trailed off. “moonflowers mean a lot to me,” he sat down, crisscrossed, and pulled out his wand to poke it into the ground, murmuring a spell.  
yunho went over to where hongjoong was seat and lowered himself gingerly to a kneel in the lush grass, trying to avoid crushing any of the plants. “why are we here, again? and, um, what are you doing?” he spoke quietly, for he felt if he spoke too loud he might disturb the flora and, possibly, fauna.  
“yeosang-ah and seonghwa-hyung need to talk about their feelings for each other, and i’m just checking the moisture,” he grins up at yunho, who is left just a little breathless by it. “i’m supposed to be looking after these plants anyways, and you can, well,” he clicked his tongue repetitively, in thought. “you can watch? not to say that i don’t trust you, it's just that, uh-”  
“it’s cool!” yunho waved his hands around in an attempt to assuage hongjoong’s conscience. “i wouldn’t trust me too much with a plant either, this is your livelihood anyways. wouldn’t want to accidentally ruin anything. i can keep you company?”  
the herbologist relaxed, sighing in relief as he drew his wand from the ground. “glad you understand, yunho-yah. i’m just gonna be checking on these flowers, for now, so you can stay where you are, if you’d like,” he stuck his wand into his back pocket. “how’s mingi?” he asked, trying to make conversation.  
yunho adjusted his legs to be more comfortable, mimicking the way hongjoong had been seated earlier as the said man ambled around the flower bed. “he’s doing fine, research and all that,” he thinks back to their conversation from a few weeks ago. “recently, he’s been trying to find a moonchild to talk to, mostly to get some answers for some speculations on korea's magical history.”  
hongjoong seems to still, observing some white flowers that were in front of him. after a beat or so of uncomfortable silence, he speaks. “is he now?”  
yunho feels he’s done something wrong, but he bites his lip and doesn’t mention it. “uh, yeah? he means no harm in it, he just really wants to find some answers, you know?” he feels the need to defend mingi to hongjoong, for some reason.  
hongjoong starts moving again, but yunho can tell he’s trying too hard to be casual. “right, right,” he laughs, but it sounds hollow. “what do you think about moonchildren, yunho-yah?” he says suddenly, fixing the younger with a stare that freezes him in his place.  
“w-what?” he stutters intelligently.  
hongjoong made his way slowly to where yunho sat, towering over him in a way that wouldn’t have been possible had yunho been standing, but it’s intimidating nonetheless. “i said, what do you think about moonchildren? what are your opinions on their disappearance? thoughts?”  
“a-ah,” yunho nodded, looking away. “i think… i think if it's safer for them, then they should stay in hiding. a lot of wizards think they should come back, but could we guarantee their protection? if they decided to claim to be moonchildren publically, i mean? like, yeah, it’d be nice if they were to do so, but at what cost, you know?” he rambled, and when he looked back up, hongjoong’s face had morphed into something more friendly, tender, even.  
“yeah, protection would be nice,” hongjoong sighed wistfully and flopped down in front of yunho. “i don’t think we’d get that though.”  
yunho may be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes but he wasn’t stupid. “we?”  
hongjoong froze, and blood seemed to drain from his cheeks. he looked down and bit his lip, obviously avoiding yunho’s questioning eyes. “didn’t mean to let that slip,” he chuckled, but for the second time, it sounded hollow.  
yunho felt realization wash over him. it all made sense now. why hongjoong seemed unnaturally handsome, his naturally calm temperament, his affinity with plants, how his magic seemed just a bit stronger than others. his silver hair, which yunho had thought was dyed, and now realized was probably natural. his slight build, his mischievous lips, his pretty eyes, everything about him. “you’re a moonchild,” he breathed.  
hongjoong winced. “that’s about half true. i’m the grandchild of a moonchild, to be more correct,” he looked up at yunho his expression unreadable. “i didn’t mean to tell you so early… not that i would have not ever told you!” he rushed his words. “it’s just that, i just wanted to make sure that you were trustworthy.”  
yunho nodded. “i completely understand, hyung, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he smiled in a way that he hoped was reassuring, but his mind was still reeling. if he ever confessed to hongjoong, would hongjoong think that he liked him only because he was a descendant of a moonchild? he didn’t want it to come across that way. he would never want him to think that.  
hongjoong smiled slightly. “thanks. please don’t tell anyone else, though. my grandmother means a lot to me, and i wouldn’t want her to be bombarded by reporters just for existing, you know?”  
“of course!” yunho nodded furiously. “it’s not my secret to tell, i totally understand.” he smiled, more to himself this time. “i’m glad you trust me and didn’t try and erase my memory on sight,” he chuckled.  
hongjoong giggled, and yunho still thinks its one of the cutest sounds he’s ever heard. “don’t think you’re in the clear yet, i might just change my mind on you,” he smirked, and yunho’s mind blanks for a bit. “thanks, though. for real.”  
yunho allows himself to be cheesy for a singular second. “always, hyung, anything for you,” he knows his expression is too fond right now, and he knows that hongjoong can see it. the said man seems to be at a loss for words, but as per usual, before any questions can be asked for clarification, they are interrupted for the second time today by seonghwa, bless his heart.  
the door of the greenroom opens, and artificial soft yellow light streams in from behind seonghwa, who waves at them. “me and yeosang-ah are going out for dinner!” he calls out to them, and yunho hears hongjoong mutter a “finally” under his breath. “i’ll be back before midnight,” the elder assures them as he moves closer to them, grinning from ear to ear. “so you guys can come back out to the living room!”  
the pair exchanged a glance before hongjoong nodded at seonghwa, his demeanor casual. “have fun, hyung!” he called to seonghwa, who was already retreating back into the hallway, a pep to his step. when hongjoong was sure he was gone he stood up, grinning. “the conversation must have gone well.”  
yunho got up as well, and jogged to catch up to hongjoong, who was making his way towards the exit. “gee, i hope so. i feel like yeosang didn’t like me much because he thought i was trying to make a move on seonghwa…”  
hongjoong chuckled as they made their way to the dining table. “oh, that definitely tracks. yeosang takes a bit to warm up to people in general, though, he’s honestly really sweet and nice, kinda quiet but that’s just how he is,” he looks as if he’s remembering a deep memory, one that seems to please him, and yunho wonders how they know each other, so he voices so.  
“ah…” he bit his lip thoughtfully. “we’re family friends, we kind of grew up together.”  
yunho’s eyebrows raised at the same rate his voice did. “wait, are you serious? that’s so cool, i wonder what he was like as a kid,” he bit his lip, trying to imagine it, but the ethereal yeosang as a snot-nosed, whiny kid was just not coming up in his mind.  
hongjoong flopped down on the chair, and ran a hand through his hair. “oh, man, let me remember… he was quiet but like, really funny. could pull a prank and always get away with it, and i respected that as a seven-year-old,” he nodded, his expression reverent. “our victims would ask who did it and yeosang would be able to argue our innocence with expertise i have yet to attain even now… what a legend.”  
“you seem to have a lot of good memories with him,” yunho sat across from him and nestled his arms on the table.  
the elder’s face seemed to cloud over for a mere second, but it was gone before yunho could blink. “it wasn’t always great… we lost touch for a while, for, ah, reasons, but we found each other again in our late teens, and that’s how he knows seonghwa, actually.”  
yunho hummed against his arm. “that’s interesting, hyung.”  
“hey, not to change the subject so suddenly, but when was the last time you had a headache?” hongjoong cocked his head at yunho, and the keeper had to take a moment to catch up to where they’re conversation had turned.  
“oh, uh, maybe two days ago? it was, yeah, two days ago because i remember trying to watch the new episode of a drama with mingi and it was just. not working out in the slightest,” yunho pouted. “i missed the kissing scene because i had to close my eyes and it was apparently really cute and we waited like thirteen episodes for it and-” yunho closed his mouth at the sight of hongjoong’s fond smile, lowering his head and blushing bashfully. “yeah, uh, two days ago.”  
hongjoong’s eyes twinkled, amused. “my condolences for the drama,” he tapped the table steadily. “are the potions that choi san-ssi gave you working? and do you know which teas they work best with? i wanna see if i should adjust anything that i’ve given you.”  
yunho perked up and listed the ingredients of the tea. there had been a good amount of willow bark, a lot of peppermint for taste, a bit of feverfew, some chamomile, and dittany, which was a given. that general recipe was the one that was given, and it was the one that yunho used the most with the potion san gave. the two in combination had done well to the pain of yunho’s headaches that now ranged from a manageable pulsing pain to a dull headache, which was a definite step up from before, as bleak as that sounded.  
“that’s good, that’s really good. i have a shipment of this new plant that i wanted to add to your recipe! a fellow potionmaker that choi san-ssi works with suggested it, he said it works for the patients of healers he works with. it should be ready in a few days, so i just wanted to know how you’re doing with your current, ah, prescription, i guess you could call it,” hongjoong got up, an excited pep in his step as he jumped up to go to their refrigerator, to presumably get the plant he had spoken about. “hopefully it’ll be a great addition, i’ve heard it supposed to help a lot!”  
yunho grinned. “i’m sure it will, hyung.”  
oh, how hilariously wrong he was about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! once again leave kudos and/or a comment if you don't mind! and have a good one!


	3. part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the finale, yunho almost dies, is informed of a corruption plot, and gets the boy so it's all okay in the end. kinda.

sometimes, one finds themselves in a hospital bed with worried friends and family on the way, and that’s okay.  
yunho blinked owlishly at the orbs of light floating around the room he had been placed in, no longer needed so they bobbed aimlessly in the air. he looked over and found his sight filled with the concerned gaze of hongjoong, seonghwa, and mingi, all of them seated in different places around the room, and he frowned, mostly in confusion, because he couldn’t figure out how he had ended up in this setting.  
“hey yunho, you okay?” hongjoong swept his bangs out of the way tentatively and gently placed his hand on his forehead. the said man would have appreciated the gesture much more under different circumstances, but he was, seemingly, hurt.  
he looked at mingi, who was looking anxiously at the door. “what happened?” he croaked at his friend, and mingi huffed a sigh.  
“it's a little bit of a long story,” seonghwa interceded.  
yunho quirked an eyebrow and that and gestured to his hospital bed. “i have the time, clearly.”  
mingi sighed again, and then scooted his chair, which had been closer to the door, towards yunho. “well, it started with hongjoong switching up the contents of your tea.”  
+++  
hongjoong had, apparently, added in some kava to his tea, which was all well and good. and it had actually worked for yunho quite well for a week or so, mingi explained, trying to assure him that hongjoong was not how he had ended up in this state. “the problem arose when san-sunbae gave you this new potion to try out with it.”  
yunho balked at that. “choi san-ssi?”  
mingi pursed his lips in frustration. “basically, the potion that san gave you reacted badly with the kava in the tea. i contacted him through the fireplace, and he should be here soon to explain himself, and, not to be biased, but i don’t think he has anything to do with you getting in here. he seemed just as surprised, if not more so than hongjoong, when he found out. he had to go back to his working space to question the person working with him, who was the one who suggested the new batch, but he should be back soon.”  
seonghwa frowned. “someone was working with him?”  
mingi nodded, looking troubled. “apparently, one of the students from jrsi came in for training a few days ago and so they helped with the basic potions for regular discomforts like stomach aches or minor scratches and stuff.”  
yuhno bit his lip thoughtfully and settled back into his bed. everything around him kept on getting more suspicious and he could not really know what to think. while he trusted mingi’s judgment, he really only had met san a handful of times. but the potions maker had never given him a reason to doubt him, so he would wait on san before his mind did an acrobatics routine to the conclusion he was starting to form.  
and he didn’t have to wait too long, because ten minutes later, san burst into the room like a bat out of hell, looking more casual than yunho had ever seen him in his probably prescription glasses, his black cardigan swooshing and his black platforms squeaking against the floor loudly, effectively disrupting the uneasy peace of the hospital room. “by the moon and stars, yunho-ssi i am so, so sorry,” he bowed his head profusely. “the assistant that i was working with, they- i-”  
mingi stood up quickly and put a reassuring arm around the potion maker’s shoulders. “hey, dude, take a breather,” he looked meaningfully at seonghwa, who passed him a water bottle.  
san took the bottle gratefully and gulped it down, streams dripping down his throat from how messily he executed the action. when he was finished, he wiped away the rogue drops of water from his face and took a deep breath. “the assistant. i don’t think… they were ever from jrsi at all. and i definitely don’t think they had good intentions while working with me in the lab.”  
hongjoong, who had been suspiciously staring at san since he arrived, looked even more concerned now and reached for yunho’s hand, seemingly nervous. “what do you mean by that?”  
san huffed a sigh, running a hand through his hair anxiously. “i think they pretended to be an actual student by using the polyjuice potion, and they must’ve been very skilled if they were able to do so. i looked more into them before i confronted them, because i wanted all the facts, and i found out that four days ago, they were reported missing by local aurors. they probably weren’t reported earlier because of the thirty-six hour waiting period, and that’s why i couldn’t tell.”  
yunho groaned. “that’s a felony, goodness gracious.”  
san nodded. “and they were around your potions for a few days… they must have slipped something into one of the potions and i didn’t notice. and they must have known they were for you, because why go through all the trouble? so when i confronted them, they… they tried to erase my memory, but i was able to counter-attack. they ended up destroying three of the potions i had been working on for months though, so while i was distracted, they escaped.”  
seonghwa gasped. “did you call the aurors?”  
“oh, yes, they were investigating the scene before i left. had to hide the felix felicis before they could charge me right?” he tried to joke, but looked terribly shaken by the experience.  
mingi sighed and pulled him into a protective hug. “we’re just glad you’re okay, san-ah.”  
“so, this issue is even more serious than we first perceived,” seonghwa breathed, putting his head into his hands.  
“someone’s actively trying to kill me,” yunho groaned. “stars above, someone’s genuinely trying to get me out of quidditch for good.”  
hongjoong’s grip on his hand tightened. “we need to find this person immediately. and we need to put you in a safer place, where no one can find you.”  
seonghwa looked up quickly from his hands in confusion. “hongjoong-ah… where would we put him? you can’t mean…”  
the herbologist nodded grimly. “i’ll take him to my grandmother’s house. he’ll be safe there.”  
yunho and mingi both made a noise of protest. “are you sure?” the former asked cautiously, remembering what the elder had told him in confidence in the greenroom.  
mingi nodded earnestly. “how will i know that yunho-yah’s okay if i’m not with him?”  
hongjoong chuckled. “i’m sure you could keep san-ssi company, since he’s just been through a rough time.” he hummed thoughtfully. “i can stay with yunho, and seonghwa-hyung can stay with yeosang-ah. that way, if anyone has been following any of us they’ll be confused enough to not figure out just exactly where yunho-yah is. my grandmother is quite difficult to find without direction, too, so he should be safe.”  
“hongjoong-ah can also send updates on yunho-yah's condition through me, and you can send potions from san-ssi through me to hongjoong-ah,” seonghwa added. “if san-ssi doesn’t mind moving most of his potions to mingi and yunho-yah’s residence?” he inquired in the direction of the man who had been trying to calm himself down in the arms of mingi, who seemed to be holding him in a way as to protect him from any rogue harm.  
san nodded. “yeah, yeah i could do that… it would probably help me sleep better anyways,” he chuckled darkly.  
yunho grimaced. “well, that all sounds like a plan, seonghwa-hyung, i’m sure you-”  
“jeong yunho!!!” a flurry of three men flooded into the room, each trying to push the other out of the way to get to the bed first.  
“oh, hey, jonhgo-yah, wooyoung-ah, kyungmoon-hyung,” yunho said meekly as the three swarmed him with the ferocity of bees.  
“what. happened.” kyungmoon demanded flatly at seonghwa, seeing that he was in his healer clothes and seemed to be the closest authority who knew anything.  
seonghwa sighed, for the nth time that day, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “it’s... a long story.”  
+++  
the whole affair of moving was quite simple. magic always lent itself as a great resource for moving very quickly and very easily. yunho, with the help of mingi, packed all of his things within three hours of returning from his two days of hospitalization.  
the hard part was moving inconspicuously.  
both yunho and mingi were quite tall, and yunho found himself to be a beacon for attention, usually, so most of their move had to be done in the night, to prevent being followed or noticed. if yunho let himself blush freely in the dark when his hand touched hongjoong’s as they moved all the boxes into a magicked bigger box and then out into the street, well that was no one's business. now if he blushes all the way to the tips of his ears when the herbologist grasped for his hand in the dark to apparate, that also, he believes, is no one's business.  
in no time, they find themselves in what is obviously a family home, the kind that is passed down from generations. it is decorated with portraits of families of past, and apparently, families of recent, if the portrait that yunho sees with what seems to be a much younger hongjoong and what must have been his father and mother is any indication of that. they seem to be in the foyer, a soft pink rug with gloss-like fabric under their feet and a large and heavy-looking oak door behind them. the foyer is full of soft colors, from the light brown wood flooring, the soft purple walls, the white edges of the portraits on the right, across from the dizzying brown staircase with a color block rug that seemed to vary in all types of colors, all of them soft. yunho might call it all very tacky were it not so well-executed, probably done under the eyes of-  
“so, this is the fellow that will be staying in my house,” a deep, sonorous voice came from yunho’s right, and a tall, imposing figure emerged from a room that they now blocked. when the figure came into the light, the scent of a burning campfire filled yunho’s nostrils so quickly they burned, and yunho saw. well. not what he expected.  
hongjoong’s grandmother looked younger than he expected, looking to be in her forties. she was very tall, as tall and yunho and maybe taller, her mouth in a firm line and grey wireframe reading glasses perched elegantly on her nose. she wore her bright silver hair in a simple bun, all stray hairs pinned away. she donned a pale yellow blouse with long sleeves, with a white turtleneck emerging from the top. this blouse was tucked into a voluminous pale mint green skirt that went to her mid-calf and wore pointed white stiletto heels that yunho thought people only wore to fancy events, but perhaps it was appropriate for her because. well. she was, extremely beautiful, as was expected of a moonchild, but yunho was caught off-guard regardless by how good and powerful she looked for someone who was supposed to be a grandmother.  
hongjoong’s face split into a grin as he left yunho’s side, who was dumbfounded, holding the cardboard box with all his stuff and went to hug his very tall grandmother. maybe if yunho were more familiar with her he would giggle a bit at the cute height difference, but currently, he was only slightly terrified. hongjoong’s grandmother begrudgingly receives the hug, rubbing circles into his back as she regarded yunho suspiciously.  
“halmeoni, this is yunho, he’s the one that i, um, have told you about,” hongjoong introduced him brightly.  
the woman raised her brows by a fraction. “oh, this is yunho?” she said now, with more interest and an expression that was almost friendly on her face.  
yunho remembered himself and unfroze, putting the box down to bow deeply, just because he wants to make the right impression. “hello, i’m jeong yunho, thank you for allowing me into your home in this great time of need,” he said, a flair for the dramatic leaping out a bit.  
hongjoong’s grandmother seems to appreciate it though, because she nods slightly, in what yunho optimistically hopes is approval, and gently pushes hongjoong towards him. “settle your… friend in, and tell him the rules of the house. hopefully, this will all blow over soon, and i will finally have the house to myself again. it was nice meeting you, jeong yunho-ssi,” her lips quirk the slightest bit before she is already floating towards the stairs, and then up, and then out from their sight.  
hongjoong laughs at yunho’s nervous face, patting his shoulder reassuringly. “don’t worry, she’s glad to have people back in the house again for once, but she won’t be for long. let’s hope the investigation doesn’t take too much time.”  
+++  
hongjoong leads yunho to a very pretty room, with dainty warm lights and light green paint, a bed big enough to fit yunho comfortably, with a large window on the left of the bed and an old-looking, but still cute desk that sits across from the foot of the bed. yunho dutifully puts away his things with the help of hongjoong. when he peered curiously out the window and was met with the magnificent sight of unyielding nature and brush growing wildly around the house, chaotic but in a fun way, he was explained to by hongjoong that the house was masked by a spell that made the nature around it impossible to break through without knowledge of the area and the location of the home. the spell seemed extremely powerful, and yunho is highly impressed, but goes on about his day because everything about hongjoong’s life seems impressive lately and it’ll do him no good to be starstruck by every word he says, especially around his grandmother, who seems to have very sharp eyes.  
around the time they’re finishing up, they can both smell the telltale scent of tteokbokki, and find that their stomachs are growling. so, they speed up the process and five minutes later, make their way downstairs and hongjoong leads yunho to the dining room, which has two steaming bowls of tteokbokki, but hongjoong’s grandmother was nowhere to be found.  
“she likes to do things for us but she also hates interaction, so i don’t think you’ll see her a lot around here,” hongjoong explains when he asks. “you’ll maybe see her only a few times over the period of time that you’re here.”  
yunho hums and is curious about the owner of the home, but he also knows when to mind his business, so he does and digs back into his meal.  
“also, there are a few simple ground rules: don’t mess with any of the plants around here, don’t bother halmeoni unless you have to, don’t go into random rooms without asking, and look after yourself while you’re here,” hongjoong lists off on his fingers. “most of the rules are just regular housekeeping but the plants one is really important.”  
yunho nodded quickly. “duly noted. i hope i don’t mess anything up around here,” he mutters the last part more to himself.  
hongjoong had another bite of his food. “relax, yunho-ah. i don’t expect you to be perfect around here, especially with what was revealed earlier this week. speaking of which, yeosang-ah will be coming over tomorrow with the information they’ve found so far, since he’s the bridge between us the few aurors that started investigating.”  
they had decided that it would be best for them to have an off-the-radar investigation, only three, max four aurors were to be dispensed for this. they had assumed that the person who was after yunho was extremely powerful, and probably had ties within the government, but they also wanted professional help. fortunately, several people owed yeosang and seonghwa favors, and they had been able to quickly find people to trust with the situation.  
“why is yeosang-ssi the bridge?” yunho wondered.  
hongjoong waved one of his hands. “family friend, remember?”  
yunho’s eyes widened in realization. “so he’s-”  
“his grandmother was friends with my grandmother, so we grew up together,” he smiled fondly. “but he moved when we were younger because people were having suspicions about their origins, so they moved to australia for a bit. i think that’s where he learned to be so intimidating and calculating… can’t blame him though, i would do the same to make sure no one tried to pry their way into my affairs without my permission.”  
awestruck, yunho finally saw the dots click into place. “so that’s why he’s… like that.”  
“like what?”  
“excessively attractive but also. terrifying,” yunho grimaced.  
hongjoong’s brows drew together, his expression looking pinched. “you think he’s excessively attractive?”  
yunho blanched. “well, uh. yeah? i mean, doesn’t everyone?” he laughed nervously, taking a sip of water.  
hongjoong nodded slowly. “i guess,” he sighed and pursed his lips. “it’s just… nothing! it’s nothing,” he smiled at yunho, but the smile just barely reached his eyes. he picked up his and yunho’s empty plates and turned away to wash them. “you can go ahead and go upstairs. i’ll probably come to hang out with you a little later.”  
his voice sounded off, but yunho decided not to pry and made his way back to his room. had he said something wrong? had it been an offense to describe yeosang as such? yunho racked his brains but he couldn’t figure it out. by the time hongjoong came to find him in his room, he still had yet to figure anything out.  
well, whatever it was, he placed it in the back of his mind as hongjoong excitedly came into his room with melon popsicles to share. he had time.  
+++  
or perhaps he did not, he thought as yeosang stared at him from across the dining table.  
hongjoong’s grandmother had made herself scarce, as she had yesterday, but in his heart, he knew she was being just as fashionable.  
yunho had come downstairs, quite late in the day (two o’clock in the afternoon), after having had a fun movie night with hongjoong. he found the two talking together quietly at the table, both looking too good for the morning (he considered it to still be morning, no matter what the clock on the wall said). he did think it a bit unfair that hongjoong was already downstairs in one of his greater outfits, looking fresh and well, but what could he do.  
yeosang looked up when he entered the room, his gaze as dignified as ever, his mouth in a very neutral line. “hello, again, yunho-ssi,” he bowed his head. “i’m sure you are doing quite well, here,” his lips quirked into a small smile before glancing quickly at hongjoong.   
yunho had yet to figure out how yeosang knew about his feelings, but he decided not to think about it too much. “how’s seonghwa doing?” he asks instead, sitting down across from hongjoong, who smiles at him too brightly for the morning.   
yeosang shrugs. “about as well as you can be when you get the privilege of being able to hold my hand 24/7, so pretty great, actually.”  
yunho nodded in agreement. “good for him. can’t say i agree with you on that, but maybe that’s just because i find you terrifying,” he picked up a cracker from the plate that had been set out for the guest, probably.  
yeosang’s smile widened. “that’s how you should feel.”  
“yeosang-ah takes great pleasure i knowing his effect on people, which is why he likes seonghwa-yah so much,” hongjoong says casually as he also takes a cracker from the pile. “seonghwa-yah barely gave him the time of day when they first met, and yeosang-ah has been enamored since.”  
yeosang’s smile slipped for a moment. “anyways,” he cleared his throat pointedly, his cheeks tinged pink. “i came here to talk about what the aurors have found so far.”  
“they work remarkably fast, don’t they?” hongjoong muttered darkly.  
“yes, only when they want to,” yeosang responds, and there’s an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice that yunho files away in his mind to ask about later. “they said that, since yunho wasn’t dying as quickly as planned and they might have noticed me trying to investigate the wand by asking other wandmakers, they were trying to cover their tracks by killing him through a potion. it’s a good thing that the person who switched up the potions only found san’s old notes, the one with the wrong proportions for yunho, or he might have died.”  
“shit, seriously?” yunho exclaimed, bits of cracker flying about from his mouth.  
yeosang grimaced at the crumbs. “yes, seriously. they have a high suspicion that it’s someone in the government. what they suspect, is that someone bet on another team, and bet themselves into an almost debt. when they realized that they might go bankrupt, they decided to bet a lot of money, and then have someone on your team done away with right before the new quidditch season, and that person being you. they probably assumed you would quit the team as the migraines got worse, which didn’t happen, clearly. from what we gather, they sought to clean up their mess by sabotaging you, and doing a sloppy job of it too. it shouldn’t be too long before we have a suspect.”  
yunho heaved a breath of relief. “at least this will be over soon,” he leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair.  
hongjoong gnawed at his lip in concentration. “yeah… at this rate, it’ll only be a few days before they figure out who the culprit is.”  
“aurors know how to do their jobs, who knew?” yeosang began to rise from his seat, there still being a bitter undercurrent to his voice.  
yunho furrowed his brow. now he knew there was definitely a story there, but his policy was to mind his business since this wasn’t his house and this wasn’t his domain. “i’m gonna go take a shower,” he declared, before slowly getting up and leaving the two at the table.  
if hongjoong wanted to talk about it, he would.  
+++  
apparently, hongjoong did want to talk about it, because when hongjoong asked him to join him on the porch for a bit of knitting/reading, after a few minutes of silence, he started right off.  
“hey, sorry about that weird vibe earlier,” he murmured the apology as he untangled the yarn, which would have been lost in the wind if yunho didn’t have the ears he did. “yeosang and i just have really shitty experiences with aurors.”  
yunho closed his book slightly and glanced over at the other, who was avoiding his gaze. “it’s honestly fine, nothing to apologize about, really. whatever is your business is your business, and whether you want to share it or not is up to you, you know.”  
hongjoong chuckled. “you’re right, it is my business, and i feel that telling you this might make you understand me better.”  
“oh okay,” the younger frowned worriedly and put his book down. “go ahead, i’m all ears.”  
the elder took a deep breath. “about fifteen or so years ago, my parents were being hunted by poachers, people who wanted to capture my father and sell him. my mother was protecting him, and both got terribly injured and had to live in hiding for a long time, while i stayed here with my grandmother,” he pursed his lips in disgust. “when the aurors were contacted, they did nothing for us and barely investigated it, probably because they were paid off. yeosang-ah’s family, at some point, had to live with us, because my grandmother could protect them at the time… but at some point, they had to leave for australia because things were becoming too much here in korea.  
“ah, i see…” yunho trailed off in shock.  
“anyways, i’m sure the system has changed since then-”  
“but they still failed you,” yunho interrupted. “they still failed you and your family, and yeosang-ssi’s family.”  
“that they did, yes,” hongjoong heaved a sigh. “but yeah, that’s the tragic backstory. my parents are fine now, yeosang-ah’s parents are fine now, so in the end, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. do with that story what you will. anyways,” he started, a clear and abrupt change in subject. “what’s your book about?”  
yunho, shocked from the change in tone of their conversation, stuttered out the synopsis. in his head, however, he was still thinking about it, and its implications.   
as he went on to explain his book, he thought in the back of his mind about how this may have affected hongjoong’s ability to trust those around him.  
hopefully, he would trust yunho.  
+++  
“is it really bong yohan??” yunho drew his brows together in disbelief as he looked at the file in front of him. “one of the quidditch officials?!”  
“yeah,” yeosang nodded grimly from the fire. the investigation had ended, and yeosang had contacted them through the fireplace of his apartment to give them the rest of the news. the file had arrived by owl only five minutes before they contacted yeosang, wanting more clarification on what exactly they were looking at. “apparently, she used to bet big on you guys whenever you first became the team you are now, when you guys used to be famous for your losing streak.”  
“she used to gamble on us?” yunho cried as he sat back in his seat in shock.  
“goodness gracious,” hongjoong muttered from where he was sat on the table, staring blankly at the fire.  
“its more common than you think, unfortunately,” yeosang sniffed. “they stopped being a sponsor because they bet on you guys losing when you won your first game, and they lost. badly. so badly, in fact, that they lost most of their money. that’s probably why they targeted yunho, so that they could have a better chance of winning all their money back next season with one of their main players out of the game and everyone being in a hurry to fix it.”  
yunho sifted through the papers. “so all these transactions-”  
“are proof of their money being taken out in large sums to pay back the people they bet against, yes,” yeosang confirmed.  
“are they caught yet?” hongjoong inquired, still looking like he wanted to punch something.  
yeosang hummed in contemplation. “the last time i heard from the aurors, they said that they had found her location, because she had fled, but also left a very obvious trail behind her and the accomplice was caught as well, so hopefully, she’ll be brought in by tomorrow. they plan on breaking the story as soon as they have her, and so by then you should be able to go back home.”  
“mm,” hongjoong nodded as he got off the table to go to the fireplace. “thanks, yeosang-ah. Yunho-yah, is there anything else you want to ask?”  
yunho shook his head, still both confused and in shock. “no, no, i don’t think i do. yeah, uh, thanks yeosang-ssi for the news.”  
the face of yeosang in the fire nodded. “alright, you guys have a good night. sorry about this situation, yunho.” and with that, he disappeared.  
“i guess everything is basically resolved,” yunho looked at the files, dumbfounded. “can’t believe it was actually one of the officials though.” hongjoong was silent for the while, and yunho looked up at him to find his looking back intensely. “what is it?” he asked self-consciously.  
“it is incredibly upsetting to me that you had to go through all of this because an official tried to literally kill you off your team,” hongjoong crossed his arms, bothered.  
yunho waved his hand. “it is what it is… greed is one hell of a drug. plus, everything should be resolved, and i should be fine once they get official bong in custody.”  
hongjoong frowned, patting his back worriedly. “but will you really be fine?”  
yunho laughed and looked up at him once again. “i have to be.”  
+++  
after bong yohan had been captured by the auror force and the news broke, there was a call for the quidditch games to be paused in order to launch a full investigation in both south korea and other nations as to weed out other possible corruption. there was also a crackdown on corruption in the sponsor circles, or so yunho was told.  
when the quidditch season started up again, yunho was to be given paid leave for the first half of the season and have someone substitute in for him. given that he had almost died because of the sport, everyone (the higher-ups that meant) had decided that compensating him for his suffering and stress was better than getting sued for negligence.  
while on paid leave, yunho found himself either helping hongjoong with his gardening (he was finally allowed to help after many days of watching him work closely) or volunteering for the little league, now alieving everyone on the team from the responsibility of volunteering, while also keeping his skills and knowledge up. he had also used his proficiency in charms to help with the garden (hongjoong finally trusted him enough to help), becoming extremely good at the mobiliabus and herbivicus charms.   
it is also in that garden that yunho accidentally confesses his feelings to hongjoong, and while it was not the worst thing, it had definitely been embarrassing.   
“mingi-yah,” he had whispered urgently into the pond, with the mirage of his best friend looking back at him exasperatedly. “you know i can’t just ask him that!”  
his best friend massaged his temples in only mild irritation. “and why not? you guys have been hanging out for literally the past two and a half months. what is so hard about asking him to be your date for your own welcome back party?”  
“that would let him know that i like him! and i honestly don’t think anyone like him would ever even consider me, dude, he’s way out of my league, you know that. i just… i like hongjoong-hyung so much but i highly doubt he-”  
there was a loud thud from behind him. “you like who so much?” a voice that yunho recognized from his dreams said, sounding much too close for comfort.  
mingi raised his eyebrows in mild interest before waving goodbye. “hey, i think san-ah is calling me, good luck dude!” and with that, mingi vanished.  
yunho winced in regret, and then slowly turned around and stood up, first seeing the basket of tools scattered on the ground before looking up to see the surprisingly rosy face of kim hongjoong. “uh…” yunho gulped loudly, and then decided to be brave for once. “you?”  
hongjoong blinked several times, not speaking, and yunho let him take his time to process. “me?” the elder squeaked, pointing at himself.  
yunho nodded. silence enveloped them once more.  
right when yunho was about to say something, hongjoong took a running start towards the taller, who panicked at this because although hongjoong was much smaller and seemed less threatening, he did have a mean kick and he was extremely talented in magic, so yunho was a goner if he so desired to-  
suddenly, there were arms around his waist pulling him close. the herbologist buried his face into yunho’s chest, his laughter muffled. “i’ve been wanting to hear that for quite some time now.”  
“oh… you have?” yunho really tried not to sound so surprised, but this was extremely unexpected.  
“yes,” hongjoong looked up at him, his eyes bright and his smile brighter. “i have.”  
“i see,” the keeper let out a bit breathlessly. “then, um, would you want to be my date to my welcome back party?”  
hongjoong smiled wider, and kissed him right on the cheek (that was about as high as he could reach anyways). “of course, i would, yunho.”  
and that was that.  
+++  
the welcome back party is a success, at least in yunho’s opinion it is. yeosang gives him a bit of shovel talk,-  
(“you do understand that at the drop of the hat i could get anyone to do anything for me, and that includes unfortunate accidents for yours truly, yes?” yeosang had cornered him into a darker area of the venue, an eyebrow raised as he regarded the taller, who felt quite small in that moment.  
“erm, yes, i am, uh, aware,” yunho cleared his throat nervously, looking everywhere but yeosang’s bright eyes.  
“good… good,” the wandmaker pats him on the shoulder awkwardly. “anyways, with that out of the way, hope you guys work out. you never heard this from me but… you guys are, perhaps, very cute together. good luck,” he is given a smile, much warmer than any he’s ever received from yeosang before.  
yunho almost choked. perhaps, yunho’s hard work of trying to get the other to warm up to him over the past few months had worked, if only a little bit. “y-yeosang-ssi, do you mean that?”  
“drop formalities yunho-yah, it’s getting a bit weird now.” and with that, he walked away briskly.  
yunho grinned tentatively.  
the hard work had definitely worked.)  
mingi had also given hongjoong a bit of shovel talk,-  
(“mingi-yah did what?” yunho gasped as hongjoong snickered into his hand, almost breathless.  
“he made you seem quite fragile, you know,” hongjoong grabbed his hand gently. “he meant well though, and he was very sweet about it.”  
“i’m not fragile,” the younger grumbled, looking down at his shoes.  
hongjoong smiled fondly at him and put his arm around his waist. “of course not, love.”)  
and mingi and san were still in a weird state of not dating each other but also very much not dating other people, which made for some very weird energy.  
that being said, his friends had come and made the party special to yunho in every way, from seonghwa lunging at both him and hongjoong to hug them and congratulate them on finally ‘getting it together and getting together’, to yunho celebrating by taking shots with his quidditch team, who were incredibly jazzed to have him back (although jongho complained endlessly about having to rearrange game strategies, everyone could tell he was excited to have yunho back on the field).  
his friends had also bonded surprisingly quickly, with hongjoong, wooyoung, and yeosang finding out they were kindred souls, and kyungmoon and seonghwa bonding over the stress of looking after others, hilariously enough. the night was spent telling stories, drinking, and making bad decisions, but yunho felt that that was the most fun he’d had in a while.  
because for the first time in a long while, despite the slight wooziness and dizziness from all the drinking that night, his head felt clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it! hope that was a satisfying enough ending! :D

**Author's Note:**

> edit: after several months (i started this in nov of 2019 lmfao), getting through my second year of college, a bit of mental illness, my keyboard breaking and becoming basically a glorified tablet, and the obvious going-ons of 2020, i have finished this behemoth. this is the longest work i've ever written, and i'm proud of myself for finishing it :D honestly truly thank you so much for reading this and I hope you are doing well in these times!! bless!!


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